Imagi-Nations WIP or What I Have Been Doing Since October

Recently I obtained from Glenn, a great deal of painted Airfix figures. Some of these figures will be able to be used for the V&B Waterloo project. The rest will be used for my Duke, Elector, King (DEK) project that I have set in the nations of the known world in the D&D setting of Mystera.

More Klantyre Highlanders.

Why? Because the known world allows for a range of both European and Non-European forces, and the nations have a wealth of background material. Of course by advancing the time line by 700 years and eliminating the high magic of the setting, allows for a great deal of flexibility in ignoring items that I dislike, or won't work for a DEK campaign. (More details are located here).

In a previous post  I detailed how I intended to use painted Highlanders surplus to Napoleonic gaming. As such the forces of Klantrye in Glantri have gained another two stands of infantry. 

Yet more Highlanders. Klantrye now has a sizable infantry force.

Included in the figures from Glenn was a collection of Airfix French Artillery that at some stage had been converted with a great deal of imagination to French Imperial Guard Foot Artillery with the addition of material to the Shako in order to make bearskins.  Given that I already have plenty of purpose built figures for that unit, I decided to do something very different.

Big headgear, bright colours, and a dedicated gun! 

I decided to model an elite unite of Himaya (warriors) from the Mumlyket of  Kadesh. Kadesh has a long traditional of military excellence, so it makes sense for them to adopt the latest military systems and equipment into their army.

The gun was produced by Plastic Soldier as a game component for their remake of 'Hold the Line'.

Both units would be rated as having shock, but the dedicated gun probably gives the Kadesh troops the edge. 

I purchased years ago a set of  German G.M. 0024"British Army in Egypt: Madras Regt". PSR reviews a similar set of figures here, and their comments about the material the figures are made from is rather generous. The material crumbles easily and should not be used to make figures!

Not all modern troops in the Sind region are in the employ of the local rulers!

.These figures (and the other two stands I hope to make from the set) I plan to use both as East Indian Company Sepoys and as Sepoys of the Minroth East Sindindian Company stationed in Sambay, Mumlyket of Jalawar.

Thyatis is the major military power of the background, and I have arbitrarily decided to give the majority of their infantry white coats. This is largely due the fact that I like the look of Ancien Régime troops in white coats!

Airfix British Hussars in use as Thyatian Light Horse face some WIP Shire militia.

WIP stand of Thyatian infantry.

While Thyatis is a major military power with all the trimmings, The Five Shires are not. They are a smaller power that doesn't have a large standing army. Rather they rely on trained bands and militias raised as required. Also, they are a nation of Halflings who call themselves the Hin.

WIP FDM 3d Printed Hin troops.

Same from the rear. 

Despite being classed as militia, many of the Shire Regiments do not suffer from being treated as militia as per the V&B rules. Rather they are often treated the same as regular linear infantry. 

A Regiment of Shire troops

Glantri and the Shires enjoy less than cordial relations.

DEK has provision for naval forces, so naturally I decided I needed ships. Rather then get ships in a sensible scale, I decided to make a cartoon scale navy using a mishmash of scales unrelated to either my figure or ground scale. This has frigates in 1/144 scale, 1st Rates at 1/180ish scale, and other ships at box scale.

A 3D printed 1/181 1st Rate Ship of the Line

A rather nice view of the stern

This is not a clever approach, but it is a fun one! I have been enjoying enlarging 1/700 scale STLs to larger sizes as I have always wanted big ship models!

The Mayflower under new management!

I am still figuring out exactly what ships go where, but I am definitely enjoying myself! The Mayflower was apparently a Fluyt design, so I am planning on using her as a generic vessel of the class.

1/83 Scale Revell Mayflower next to 1/144 scale HMS Southhampton

And since I have so many ships, I clearly need a Pirate Fortress. Below are my WIP planning photos for remodeling a rather broken and gutted Tracey Island Kat purchased for me.

A toy pirate ship which could be a ketch with asperations to greatness!

The island can host multiple V&B urban areas. 

It will need defenses to cover that nice beach...

Thank you for looking, and hopefully I will have some finished items soon to post on the blog!

Naval Gunfire Support

Amphibious operations are something I have an interest in, and an often important aspect of these operations is Naval Gunfire Support (NGS). Naturally since I have acquired a number of suitable hulls for use as amphibious warfare platforms (click here for more details), I have also been on the lookout for something with a little more bang.

A little more bang......

 I have been aware of the existence of large toy battleships for some time, but I hadn't seen any for sale here in NZ, and the cost of getting one shipped here seemed excessive (around NZ$100). Then one turned up on NZ's favourite local auction site for NZ$25 plus shipping, so I had to grab it...

A view from the rear.

Rear turret and helipad....

Side view.

 The battleship seems to be based on the US Iowa class, but with the length and lines becoming less sleek, and rather more caricatured. Given that this is idea for letting big items appear on a tabletop, I certainly won't complain.

And complete with storage drawer....

 This battlewagon came with some metal planes and two HO scale tanks (a Churchill and a Sherman  - I have another Sherman for you Ion, if you are interested), but I have seen it offered with a variety of different toy army items, some more useful than others.

The tape gives an idea of the length of this beast.

Ideally, I would like to obtain at least another one of these, or a similar type of ship, but even having one is very useful.

Avast 2014!

2014 has well and truly arrived in New Zealand and I have already started making wargaming purchases, planning future games, and working on finishing some current projects. Particularly ones that could be used to add value to other projects...

Original paint work on left, new paint job on right.

A few years back I discovered some cheap toy pirate ships for sale, so I bought five of them with the idea of painting them up and using them for gaming. A friend of mine has a rather large lounge with blue carpet and the idea was to use them for a type of naval floor war game. Like a great deal of projects, this one has languished for a number of years before I recently got inspired to relook at pirate stuff after seeing my friend Ken's 15mm collection of pirate stuff.

Now with Hat Marine for scale.

Having acquired a couple more ships (more on that later) I have enough ships to put to sea two small fleets. All I need to do is a little prep work - removing stickers and blogging some holes - and then I can paint them and use them.

Another view of the two ships.

The paint job will be fairly basic, but hopefully quantity will have a quality of its own! Plus once I finish the fleet I can use it for gaming, rather than have it sit in a box waiting to be used. After all, why have toys if you don't play with them!

Close up on stern detail.

 Thanks for looking, and I hope you all have an excellent 2014!

Vertical Envelopment, or "I can't believe it's not an Osprey!"

Back in September of 2012 I made a post about my small collection of Aircraft Carriers (Click here for that post), and the glacial speed at that I was progressing with that particular project.

Some Not-Ospreys.

In around 2006/2007 I found that Matchbox had released some large cartoon scaled aircraft as part of their Sky Busters range. These were the "Sky Busters: Missions" sets that seemed to have some potential for wargaming. The Rescue Ranger set (click here for a link containing product information) was snapped up by me when I saw some on sale at The Warehouse. It also has cool lights and sounds....

Esci Modern NATO German for comparsion

A closer look.

Group shot with figure for size comparison

Another set in the collection "Coast Patrol" provided another usable aircraft - that I was originally going to convert to use as a Dune style Carry-All, but will use as a more conventional Sky-Hook style heavy helicopter.

Side by side with figure for size comparison.

It is rather a big beast.

 Of course the reason I got them was to allow for vertical envelopment during the moderns amphibious game, which requires them to to be put on one of the toy carriers that will be converted to an amphibious warfare vessel of some type.

Not Ospreys on the not  LPH 

Another view.

Looking down the deck.

 The current plan is to finish bogging the various screw holes, remove the stickers on the aircraft, and then spray them a base grey and then paint on additional detail, such as cockpit windows With luck, I might be able to do this after Christmas Day. Once that's done I will continue slowly working towards doing more on this project.....

Dry Dock

I took these photos yesterday of my carrier fleet. During my last visit to Glenn, I mentioned my carriers, and said I would do a post on them. My purchase of large toy aircraft carriers started in around 2003 or 2004, when the Countdown chain of supermarkets brought in a range of large toys for sale at around the $100 price point. These toys were largely of the large truck/ fire engine variety - but there were also aircraft carriers. taking my inspiration from a couple of articles/pictorials that had appeared in Wargames Illustrated using large cartoon scale scale ships I purchased two - and the second one took some doing to find!

The fleet of six sitting in drydock - my driveway!

 These first two purchases are the largest of the carriers and have a rather nice black flight deck. Naturally, they came with an air wing, electric sounds and lights and can move well, albeit slowly. Racing them has also proved to be a surprising popular activity.....

I have placed  a 1/72 Esci figure for comparison purposes on the flight deck.

The other four ships of the fleet were all purchased during the New Years sales in around 2006. They were significantly cheaper - and of lesser quality - than the earlier larger units. I plan to convert two of these carriers into amphibious warfare ships, while ideas for the smaller pair range from replacing the angled flight deck with a straight thru one and using them as generic WW2 style escort type carriers,  or making them amphibious platforms, or even using them as carriers.

The holes in the flight decks of the closest two carriers are where I removed a large and silly looking missile turntable.

Third carrier up from the bottom has an AAVP-7 on deck.

Close up of the AAVP-7 on the deck. In is a 1/72 die cast model from the  Combat Tanks Collection.

The third and forth carriers (counting from the bottom) in this picture are the two destined at this stage to be used as amphibious warfare platforms. While these ships are all grossly oversized to be used in a standard CD3 game, the idea was to use these ships as an off board assembly area for players to organise their forces. They are planned to be used in a large moderns amphibious game I hope to run - similar to the large Tarawa game I ran at the UCSA many years ago.

As I slowly gear up for this I will post information in this  blog - but I can't imagine anything happening soon! - This project has been brewing away for some time and progress has been some what glacial in nature! That being said, most of the major purchases for the game have already been made - I just have to do some painting and assembly work!

Beach Scenery

Years ago I ran a large CD game in the Lower Common Room of the UCSA building. The game was essentially a thinly veiled refight of the invasion of Tarawa in 1943. Like many moments in life that you wish you had a camera at - I sadly did not. While many things did not go well, weren't ready in time, or simply were overlooked, the game did result in the construction of many items of kit that still see use today. (And by today, I mean within the last three years)

In particular, a reasonable amount of beach obstacles that were designed to be generic as possible. The idea being that they could then be used in a variety of other settings. I rediscovered these lately while digging through the hoard looking for something else entirely.

The good ol' Esci classic. I really need to rust these guys up a little.

Another view of the hedgehogs. More D-day than Tarawa, but more useful for other gaming.

Another view of the same.

Still waiting for the fuse wire to run between them. A collection of Esci wooden obstacles.

Another view of same.

And some more.

Front two rows are Fujimi hedgehogs from memory.

Rows (from front) three to six are hedgehogs from the same set that the mystery figures came from.

Connector pieces from a kids toy set. These came as part of a second hand acquisition of wargaming stuff.

Broken hedgehogs to represent broken hedgehogs.

Looking at these photos it appears that I must have added to the amount I had for the Tarawa game. I still have some more waiting to be built up. Looks like another expedition into the hoard is called for!