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Welcome to Tulwar and Bayonet!

August 22, 2013, 5:47 pm
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Tulwar and Bayonet is a blog devoted to my hobby of playing tabletop miniatures games of the historical battles from the Anglo-Sikh Wars of the mid-19th Century.

I got started down this path in the 1990's when I was reading up on the colonial wars of Queen Victoria. The Sikh war was interesting as it was one of the few times that the British (or rather the East India Company) actually stood to lose battles that could indeed cost them the war.As it turns out, the Honorable East India Company won every battle, but the casualty counts were high enough to shock the British people and government.

Its a colorful period with redcoats, (on both sides) lots of artillery, cavalry and even camels and elephants. I plan to document my efforts at gaming this little know conflict covering both the rules I use for the games as well as the various figure manufacturers that make up my miniature armies.
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WInter is coming...

December 8, 2013, 7:16 am
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...and no, I don't watch Game of Thrones.

Got a few inches of the 'white death' blanketing the ground outside, so its a good time to dive back into my hobby related projects.

Drifting away from sci-fi for a bit, we've spent the fall immersing ourselves in Ares Game's "Wings of Glory" (Aka "Wings of War" by Fantasy Flight Games). We've had great fun swanning around the miniatures table blasting away with our fighters and bombers. I've acquired more Caproni heavy bombers than is likely healthy, but that's a post for another website.

I'm awaiting the completing and delivery of my 28mm Sikh Wars figures from Studio Miniatures. Then I need to get off my buttocks and finish prepping for games at CincyCon 2014.

But wait there's more! Thanks to my friend Scott, I've gotten the bug to play Star Trek: Attack Wing. So I've made a modest investment in a Klingon task group to field in casual play and maybe the occasional organized play event.

All of this leaves my 15mm projects more on the back burner than I would like. I need to get the paint out and work on something to feel like I'm making progress. Maybe put together a small game for CincyCon that gets some of these troops on the table. Perhaps something small?
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Projects, projects, projects...

December 8, 2013, 7:24 am
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I'm eargerly awaiting receipt of my 28mm Sikh Wars figures from Studio Miniatures. Earlier in 2013 I funded their kickstarter and it succeeded well beyond the initial scope of the projects. The many additional add ons caused shipping to be delayed, but the images I've seen so far are looking good!

Once I get the figures in hand, I can start completing the units I will need to field the troops used at the Battle of Sobraon. It was an ugly battle featuring a strongly entrenched gun line with flanks secured on a river. (Imagine if you dumped the central redoubt from Borodino into the middle of the Confederate lines at Antietam  and you get a rough idea of what the British faced.)


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Studio Miniatures Kickstarter delivers!

December 28, 2013, 6:56 pm
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In this week's post I received my long awaiting 28mm Sikh War figures from Studio Miniatures.  This was the result of a Kickstarter I contributed funding too in late summer 2013. And what a parcel it was!

  
The parcel posted from the UK to me here in Ohio. Postage marked as 22 pounds!


Opening the envelope revealed the contents....lots of boxes and two clamshell packs.



Emptying out the envelope yielded the following...


One clamshell opened during transit and the contents were loose in the envelope. This must have happened late in the process and all the figures survived intact. (Hooray!) The KS personality figures from the stretch goals and the gun crews were in the clamshells, the 'battalions' of Sikh and British are in the white boxes.

Escapees from the packaging, but no casualties - not even the RSM with that long bayonet.

The infantry was well packed in each box




Some of the stretch goals included artillery crews for each two battalions ordered as part of the Kickstarter. The crews were in this clamshell.




The figures look great. Sharp detail and cleanly cast. Studio Miniatures has scored with the initial releases for their Sikh War line. Below are some images of more of the bonus figures.

   
Sikh General and water bearer

   
The British RSM

Mounted Sikh Officer

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Unboxing the new Studio Miniatures 28mm Sikh War figures

January 1, 2014, 2:17 pm
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Okay, I had time to open all the boxes from Studio Miniatures and look at most of the figures except the artillery crews. (We'll cover them in the next week or so).  What follows are my initial impressions  and images of the figures. I'll be adding more detailed reviews of the figures to the Parade Ground page in the future.

My Kickstarter return was four 'battalions' of miniatures - two each of British regulars and Sikh Khalsa infantry. The British battalions are 20 figures while the Sikh battalions are 24 figures. Each includes command and colour bearers along with infantry in 'march attack' (with fixed bayonets) pose.

In addition to the four battalions there were a number of 'stretch goals' that resulted in additional figures being included with the release. This included addition Sikh and British officers both on foot and mounted as well as a British RSM, a Sikh 'water bearer' an artillery piece - 9 pounder for the Brits, 12 pounder for the Sikhs and four artillery crew for the same, and a figure of "Flashman" from the popular series of novels by George McDonald Fraiser.

The British figures

The British figures arrived well packed in white cardboard boxes. The box contained two layers of foam that keeps the figures secure and intact.


Command Figures

We'll start start with one of the stretch goal figures - the mounted British commander. Cleanly cast - both horse and rider with good detailing. The only minor quibble is  that the rider does not fit the horse 'out of the box'

Not quite fitting his mount

However, a quick squeeze with my spreader tool (a model railroad tool) has him firmly astride his mount.

All squared up and ready to go

In what will become a recurring theme,  this mounted officer is a bit bigger than a comparable mounted officer from Old Glory's Sikh War command pack.
The Studio Miniatures horse is behind this Old Glory and rider. Even so, you can see the SM figure is larger than the OG.

The British foot officer is also cleanly cast with nice detail. If I have any regrets its that the figure is not different or better animated than other British officer figures already available. But he will fit well into the line of advancing infantry with whom he is assigned.

 

The British Drummer. A nice figure - but those are some hefty drum sticks!

 

 

British Color bearer

 Infantry figure


The infantry consist of one pose, so this will be quick. The figure represents the 'flank company' and is nicely detailed.


Again these figures are on the large side, as you can see in this comparison image of the various figures to Old Glory regular infantry.

Studio Miniatures (unpainted) officer (on left) infantry and standard bearer (on right) with Old Glory infantry and bearer.



The Sikh Figures

The Sikh figures pretty much mirror the British figures. Both in character and size. One nice thing was the I received two (2) Sikh flags with one of the infantry battalions, so my Sikh troops will have colors.


Command Figures

The command figures turned out pretty good.

A Sikh officer with the Paag headgear battalion

Officer with the 'top knot' turban battalion

standard bearer



Sikh drummer

Sikh bugler


Infantry figure

Marching to action with bayonet fixed

 

 

  There were only two minor issues with the figures. Both were easily corrected.

One (1) figure had a bent bayonet

 

One (1) figure had flash between the legs
 As with the British, when the Studio Miniatures Sikh War troops are compared to Old Glory or Foundry figures directly, we can see a distinct difference in size.

The SM officer on the left towers over this Foundry Sikh NCO figure.

Foundry standard bearer on the left with SM figure on the right.

 

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Account locked out of the miniatures page....

May 25, 2014, 6:57 am
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Title says it all - locked from the miniatures page and without even a "so long and thanks for all the fish" from the site management. It's not like I even post that much to the thing. Must have gored someone's ox in the 2014 Tango...tango.

So, so long TMP - it was fun while it lasted.


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If you didn't laugh, you'd cry...

May 27, 2014, 7:37 pm
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I've got a good sized collection of 25-28mm Sikhs from Foundry and Old Glory. About 10 years ago, I painted most everything up and based it for Volley and Bayonet. I put on the Battle of Ferozeshah about once every year at local conventions. It's a fun game and it's visually impressive.

A few years ago, I realized that all the Sikh infantry had been painted with white cross brace straps across their chests. While it looked good and it match the British uniform style...it was also wrong. Those straps should have been black for the winter uniform and white for the summer uniform (and these guys were not painted for summer!). But, I told myself, it doesn't really matter.It's a minor thing and the period is so obscure it's not likely to be noticed.


Then came today.

I sat down to paint those new figures I got from Studio Miniatures. It had been a while and I wanted to check the color of the horizontal piping across the uniform jacket. So I pulled out my old Opsrey book on the Sikh Army and thumbed through the pages. Ten minutes later, I got a shock.

Somehow, I'd used the wrong plate as the basis for the Sikh infantry. I'd painted all those years ago. I'd been painting the line infantry with red jackets and white trousers.

My typical paint choices for the Sikh infantry.
But there in the Osprey were the plates for the Sikh regulars - in blue trousers!

A bit more prototypical uniform colors.

So what had I done? I'd painted up my entire Sikh Army as if they were wearing the uniform of the elite "French Legion" (also known as the "Guard Brigade".Imagine you've got a big collection of French Napoleonics and you just discovered you had painted every single solider as if he were a member of the Imperial Guard!

All I can say is...D'oh!

So I caught it early enough with these figure to correct the painting before I based the figures. What it means for the games is that I'll end up with two distinct groups of figures - those painted historically and those that are...not. I'm not planning on repainting anything at this time (getting the figures off their V&B bases would be a horrible chore - I used Woodlands Scenic Flexpaste to attach them and that stuff is tenacious!) So they'll soldier on in their incorrect uniforms for the foreseeable future.
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Getting that old 15mm itch again...

May 30, 2014, 6:29 pm
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...and I need to scratch it!

I've got a bunch of stuff sort of done, but I think it's time to get my mid-tech wheeled 'armored cav' force painted up and ready for the tabletop. I think I'll find the time to pull everything out and rough out the organization, then I can tackle starting the painting.

Vehicles I've got in spades - I suspect they'll mostly be mounted in Matchbox vehicles. Where I think I'll come up short are suitable infantry figures. I've got loads of RAFM troops in combat armor, but I think I want something a little less bulky. Something like BDU and body armor with small arms and maybe a couple of heavier support weapons.  Guess I'll have to start perusing the available 15mm infantry. If anyone has any suggestions, throw 'em my way!

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The Armored Cav platoon vehicles

May 31, 2014, 3:49 pm
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Just so we undestand what I'm trying to find infantry to fill, here are the vehicles of the armored cavalry (motorized) task force.

Vehicles are a mix of Rebel Miniatures, Rafm and Matchbox. The GZG mid-techers still looking like a good choice?


Light Scout cars. Rebel Miniatures on left, Matchbox with spare gun fitted.

Medium APC - RAFM "Imp" 6X6 wheeled with dual cannon/tube launchers

Matchbox Stryker given a primer coat of gray.

If one is good, two are better, right?

The Stryker is large - much larger than the Imp. But it's sci-fi so it's okay. A combo APC/FSV needs to be bigger.

I'd forgotten that the rear hatch actually can be dropped.



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"Klytus, I'm bored....

June 8, 2014, 6:53 am
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What plaything can you offer me today?"
                                  - With apologies to  Emperor Ming "The Merciless"

Over the past week, I've been struck by a sense of ennui regarding my recent choices of sci-fi rules. Mostly this stems from two decades of playing GDW's old game "Command Decision". That game left me with the desire to model more 'grand-tactical' level games. I don't want to push a squad (or even a platoon) around the table - I want that mid-level of command - something at the Battalion / Regiment.

But wait - there's MORE!

I also want a game that is (wait for it...)
  • Simple - The rules need to be straightforward and uncomplicated.
  • Fast Moving - Speed of play should be king. Players should get to do stuff and often!
  • Easy to pick up - I want to be able to run this at conventions with people that have never played before.
  • Does not require boat loads of charts - I don't want to spend a lot of time looking up unit data to result combat.
  • No cardboard landfill! - It does not result a 'table clutter' from a plethora of markers
  • Does not take all day - Ideally it can be finished in a 4-6 hour gaming session. Most of my compadres don't have 8+ hours they can spare for the mega-gaming sessions of our youth.

Does such a thing exist? Is this a fool's errand?

I dunno, While at Cincycon this year, I had a wacky thought about a "Road Warrior" type game that would be based on a popular Horse and Musket set. The key would be capturing the flavor of the period without bogging the game down in the details. That train of thought is leading me toward a similar concept but for the sci-fi type game. Generic basing, but tweak the movement and combat effectiveness  to reflect the following;

  • smallest unit is the fire team ( I struggle with this. I think it should be at the squad level, but in many cases I think the team is the smallest element to represent, be it a fireteam, a weapons team or a command team.)
  • Unit's have an effective range, but can generally shoot at anything they can see. This covers the typically gaming table experience.  (At low tech end this get's modified for infantry systems?)AT the higher end, "Effective range" is anything you can see.
  • Troop quality must be reflected.  It could be some combination of 'morale rating' or even better fire dice (d8 versus, d6, etc.)
  • Command Control must be reflected - and it must reflect the flexibility that high-tech networking brings to the battlefield. That high-tech unit invariably gets thinned out over a greater frontage as command control allows it. 
  • Diverse units must be reflected - anything from ground pounders through ground vehciles to helo's/VSTOL through grav tanks and assault landers.

So....I don't much much, do I. The creative side of me want's to start cobbling rules together and playtest some of these ideas. The slacker in me says "why are you trying to reinvent the wheel?" Just work with something that's already on the market.

What say you? Any interest in such an idea? Should I go dig out my old prototype Command Decision: Striker modifications that I wrote in the 90's (before Striker II hit the market). Or boldly strike out and try to create something new and different?


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Painting a Khurusasn APC and Rebel Miniatures Titan gunship

June 22, 2014, 7:30 pm
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Just to prove I'm not totally slacking off the last two weeks, here are a few pictures showing the - admittedly slow - progress I'm making toward getting some new units ready for the table. I've had both the Khurusan wheeled APC and the Rebel Miniatures Titan gunship for at least a year now, but progress stalled after I'd assembled and primed the models. But no more! Progress must be made and here's the proof it's starting to happen.

The current state of the painting table.

The painting work space is a little crowded right now with CMG grav vehicles, 28mm Sikhs, armored cars (Rebel Mini's and Matchbox) and the big APC and gunship models all competing for space.

Okay, not so maybe I have a few too many irons in the fire right now. But on with the show!

The Khurusan APC. Just looking for a few good Marines to check out the colony.


 The Khurusan APC is a BIG casting. The picture does not do it justice, but it's both broad and long. It's like a cross between an IFV and an RV. Those marines could live in this thing for a while if they had to do so. I've got a base coat of Olive Grey paint down. It's a good green base for 'army' type vehicles.




The Titan Gunship
Next up the "Flying Kaytusha" that is Rebel Miniatures Titan gunship. A good sized troop compartment is paired up with four fix forward medium cannon and up to SIX rocket pods (four under the wing and two - not pictured - mounted ABOVE the wing) to deliver a devastating salvo on enemy troop concentrations. The base coat here is again Vallejo Olive Gray. (Olive Gray is a theme color for this force. It gives the various VTOL a "Vietnam/Avatar" vibe and helps visually pull the models together into a sense of team.




Matchbox - Oshkosh MATV
I've mentioned the M-ATV before. It makes a nice sci-fi scout car/light APC. This one's been repainted in it's 'national colors of Olive Gray (again!) and light gray camoflague. I used a dremel tool to open up the gun shield and mounted a spare support weapon (I thing from a CMG model) in the turret. These MATV are some of the best I've seen from Matchbox for sci-fi gaming. 

I've got another model in progress that might get a spare tank gun and become the Fire Support variant with a low-velocity gun and no passenger ability. Have to see how that fits. If I don't like it, I see a missile launcher variant in it's place.

 


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An Awesome Power Projection AAR

July 28, 2014, 5:40 am
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If you've never heard of it, Power Projection is to Traveller Book 5 starship combat as Striker is to Book 4. An excellent set of rules for translating starship combat to the tabletop setting. There is an excellent After Action Report of a Power Projection game over on Tempest in a Teapot. I highly recommend it - both for the quality of the write up and the opportunity to check out some excellent miniatures that model ships of the Interstellar war.

http://tempestsinateapot.blogspot.com/2014/04/interstellar-wars-battle-of-ross-154.html
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Blog Consolidation Time

August 10, 2014, 7:35 pm
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I've come to the conclusion that hosting these multiple niche gaming blogs may be a great way to segregate the contect, but it's a real pain to manage these sites. To that end, I'm consolidating my gaming blogs under a single banner. I'll be retaining the Skill Level Zero blog as the master, but going forward it will feature not just Traveller / sci-fi related topics, but my other gaming interests as well. In the future you'll see posts related - but not limited  - to the following;

  • American Civil War naval gaming
  • Sikh Wars (mostly using Volley and Bayonet)
  • WWI aerial gaming (mostly using Wings of War / Wings of Glory
  • WWII aerial gaming (mostly using Check your 6)
  • The occasional board game
  • Assorted other gaming related topics
So stay tuned and thanks in advance for rolling with the changes!
     
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Rekindling the fire for 1/600 ACW Naval games

August 24, 2014, 7:41 pm
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Ten years ago I was obsessed with naval actions of the American Civil War. I'd written rules for campaign games (Anaconda) and tabletop games (Iron Thunder) and collected a ridorkulously large collection of 1/600 scale ship models. But for the past eight years, ACW naval got pushed to the back burner while other interests took priority.

But in the past few weeks, I've rediscovered my interest in ACW naval. I've had some great conversations with people like Stephen Taylor at Bay Area Yards and the boys in my local gaming group. So, I pulled out some boxes and started dusting off the ships. I mean literally dusting off the ships. They had like 8 years of dust accumulated on them.

One of the big changes since I'd put there away is the ease of sharing stuff on the web...like through this blog!  So as I'm pulling them out, I thought it would be fun to post pictures of some of the models so you get a feel for my skill level (or lack thereof) in modeling and painting 1/600 scales ships. And without further delay...on to some of the ships!

USS Galena. This was the first or second attempt I made at scratchbuilding a ship model.




USS Galena  was a steamship converted into an ironclad. Not a stunning success, but the ship appears in a handful of important naval engagements and at the time, you could not find a model anywhere in 1/600. Forunately, this is a relatively easy ship to model. Which is good as I managed to produce a decent gaming piece that no one will mistake for a contest quality model. I captured the important features that identify the ship. In hindsight, I wish I'd worked on the stern a bit more.

The ship has a balsa wood core which is covered is sheets of Evergreen styrene. The bowsprit is styrene as are the railings, stack, mast and the flying bridge. The standing rigging is fine steel wire. The base is my standard - styrene with Woodland Scenics flexpaste applied and painted in layers of brown tan and light green. 


Pulled back to show the whole model
And a view of the port side.
USS Rhode Island. This is a Bay Area Yards model.
Another shot of Rhode Island. She was the towing ship when USS Monitor sank.
Another Bay Area Yards model - USS Ossipee. This uses one of thet mast kits from BAY.



USS Ossipee is a great kit of one of the smaller blue water steamers in the Union Navy. 
I rigged the kit using thin steel wire. This actually serves as functional standing rigging and provides additional strength and rigidity to all the masts.The masts don't have a stiff core and need the rigging to keep them straight.


Another BAY kit. USS Minnesota. An early effort of mine. I recycled the masts from a very old TCS blockade runner kit and added a minimal amount of rigging. She's srtipped down for combat with the upper masts and sails struck below.
Here's a Peter Pig USS Monitor next to the Minnesota for comparison.
What's the Monitor without USS Congress?
USS Congress again. I scratchbuilt all the masts on this and USS Cumberland out of styrene. Even the standing rigging is styrene. The ratlines are from a window screen material.  They are not perfect, but for a gaming model they get the point across.
Monitor, Minnesota, Congress (on the left) and Cumberland (rear)
A side by side shot. The Peter Pig monitor is a nice easy kit and true to its prototype.
Another Peter Pig model - the mortar schooner. 


Again, the ratlines are from window screen material. If I remember correctly I scratch built the masts and the shaft of the bowsprit. The base is styrene with Flexpaste applied and painted in suitable 'riverine' colors. 
A Thoroughbred armed ferryboat steams past a mortar schooner.
I'll print the name on paper that matches the table top and tape the name to the ship. 

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Even more ACW naval models!

August 26, 2014, 7:43 pm
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I keep sorting through stuff, so here's a few more pictures.

One day, I ought to build and index of all the models. But not today!

 First up some tinclads and timberclads.

Assorted tinclads and timberclads from  Peter Pig, Bay Area Yards and Thoroughbred.

USS Blackhawk was a large, lightly armed tinclad that has the distinction of serving as flagship of the Union Mississippi River Squadron. The model is from Peter Pig. As far as I know, it's only available from Peter Pig.
I added the forward mast, midships masts and stern mast. The paint scheme is based of an image from Silverstone's Warships of the Civil War. The vessel is large enough that she had a stable for Admiral Porter's horse.

USS Blackhawk

Next up USS Lexington (I think). This is a Thoroughbred model of a Timberclad. They saw heavy service early in the war especially at Forts Henry and Donnellson and the Battle of Shiloh.

Lexington


Bay Area Yards does a nice set of Confederated River Defense Fleet rams, one of which is Earl Van Dorn. This is a small model - the photo does not do it justice. Even though it's small, there is great detail present.

Earl Van Dorn - a work in progress





Van Dorn on the quarter showing off her casemate.

Another small model - Bay Area Yards did the CSS Fanny. This is a small, steam powered fishing vessel that was converted into a light gunboat for the defense of coastal North Carolina. She mounts two light guns. Fanny fought in a handful of coastal actions before being scuttled to prevent capture (and to deny the Union use of the Dismal Swamp canal),




CSS Fanny from Bay Area Yards



Yet another Confederate  from Bay Area Yards, this one is a little larger - the commerce raider CSS Florida. Florida is a cruiser with moderated armament and decent endurance.

CSS Florida from Bay Area Yards. The model sports a set of Bay Area Yards masts.




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Close up of CSS Florida. This will look good when I finally finish the model.





Switching back to the Union for a bit, I started pulling out tinclads. I found a set of four that share a common parentage. All four were sculpted by Patrick Hreachmack. Two are resin that Patrick cast himself, 2 are models he did for Bay Area Yards - Argosy and Forest Rose.

Attack of the tinclads




Needs more tinclad. Forest Rose and Argosy on the right side.




Forest Rose from Bay Area Yards





Mortar Schooners. Thoroughbred's on the left/front. Peter Pig in the right/rear.





USS George Page. Another is a series of small warships from Bay Area Yards.

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Smoke on the Water at Advance the Colors September 19th, 2014

August 30, 2014, 12:31 pm
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I'll be providing an ACW naval game at HMGS-Great Lakes 'flagship' convention Advance the Colors. The game is 7:00pm on September 19th. Given the short slot available for the game, I'm forced to keep it relatively small. For simplicity, I'm going to use mostly tinclads and gunboats, maybe an ironclad or two per side. Possibly a battery of guns and the ubiquitous torpedoes and obstacles like "snags".

I'm going to loosely model this on the Red River campaign with some of the 'what if' elements that the Anaconda campaign game allowed to happen. What I'm thinking is...

Union Squadron with;

USS Chiilicothe
USS Lafayette
USS Choctaw
USS Argosy
USS Forest Rose

Confederate Squadron with;

CSS Missouri............casemate ironclad
CSS William H.Webb.......paddlewheel ram
CSS Indianola (Captured earlier in the war)
CSS General Sumter....gunboat ram

Battery Van Foose
2 Medium Smoothbore guns

 The problem with convention games is that you never know how many players you will get or what their skill and experience levels will be.

So...this is a relatively low end game. Mostly light and medium guns with some heavies opposing heavily armored counterparts.

The alternative is to do Hampton Roads with Congress, Cumberland and Minnesota against Virginia. This has the benefit of being a short game with lots of opportunity to fire guns. 

Too much? Too little? Too weird?


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Adventures on the West Coast...

September 13, 2014, 8:48 pm
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My job sent me to San Francisco for the week. While the days were long and the work was engaging, I was fortunate to be able to break away one evening and spend some time with Stephen Taylor owner/operator of Bay Area Yards and all round nice guy.
The National Maritime Museum has a great collection of sailing and steam vessels.

After meeting me for dinner, Stephen graciously invited me back to his place to hang out and shoot the breeze. This was easily the most fun I had the whole trip. The time flew by as we talked gaming, books, movies and reviewed miniatures from the collections of Stephen and his friends. Before I knew it, the evening was over and I had to return to my hotel across town.

It's always fun when how you imagine something to be runs into the reality of what it actually is. We often talk about many miniature wargaming manufacturers being 'cottage' industries. Stephen showed how true this was in the case of Bay Area Yards when he opened a case and said "This is Bay Area Yards" all the molds and some of the masters for casting all the models that BAY offers.

Bay Area Yards - this is where the magic happens.


Assorted 1/600 models ready to go! 





I used to think the Dunderburg was a large model! British casemate ironclads.


HMS Warrior...come out and play! The scale is in inches!

Stephen has a wonderful sense of humor and he carries this into many of his gaming projects. One example I'd wish I'd taken a picture of was his Kelly's Heroes Tiger tank....modeled after the Tiger tank in the movie. Sooo...it's got the suspension of a T-34 and the turret of a Tiger, but mounted on the forward turret ring of the T-34 chassis. It's a great match to the prop from the movie.


Speaking of movies...this made me laugh! This was one of the more colorful command stands in Steve's collection. As it's not labeled, all we can say is that this is "the brigadier with no name."


You all remember the Rat Patrol, right? Willy's jeeps versus the wily Afrika Korps in the desert. Stephen's ready to game these actions with his custom figure conversions.

Pardon the blur, but this photo is supposed to show the Rat Patrol -with correctly modeled crews. The red kepi of the driver is obscured by the gun barrel.


And the classic "Germans" driving American kit conversions.

All in all - it was a great night meeting new people and having a great time bonding over miniature gaming. It was over all too quickly.


If  you find yourself in San Francisco - drop Stephen a line. He's a great guy happy to share information about his town and his hobby.

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Smoke on the Water at Advance the Color 2014

September 21, 2014, 5:32 pm
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After a seven year hiatus, I returned to American Civil War naval gaming at Advance the Colors 2014. On the first evening of the show, I provided a small game pittiing Union and Confederate ships against each other on the Red River. We had a good turn out with three Union players and two Confederate players. The Union Squadron consisted of the following

USS Chillicothe
USS Lafayette
USS  Choctaw
USS Marmora
USS  Argosy

The Union squadron had been the mission of raiding the Upper Red River and destroying at least one Confederate vessel or battery.  Facing them were the Confederates consisting of the remains of the River Defense fleet.

CSS Missouri
CSS Arkansas
CSS Indianola (captured earlier in the war)
CSS Sumter

Battery Savory...two guns - a medium rifle and a super heavy coastal Columbiad

Assisting their efforts were are minefield of torpedoes and some rocky obstructions about midway across the area of play.

The Confederates were tasked with defending the Upper Red River. All they had to do was not lose all their ships.

Designer's note: Okay, I looked at this and thought, "yeah, this is doable. Both sides have easy missions."

Union players - Darryl, Lawson and Craig, not pictured Shawn

The battle opens with a long range duel between the rifles of the Choctaw and Lafayette and Battery Savory. The Union immediately suffered a setback when one of the rifles on the Choctaw exploded. Parrott guns were known for their weakness and this guns proved no exception. 

The Union chose to advance in line. USS Marmora displayed a little too much enthusiasm and charged forward ahead of the fleet.

Marmora leads the way!
 
Battery Savory first engaged  the USS Choctaw, but then switched fire to the Marmora once it passed through the mines. In additon, the guns of the Indianola and Arkansas fired as well.

Marmora suffers multiple hits and catches fire.

The pummelling fire forced a morale check for the crew of Marmora. Lawson threw the dice and FAILURE! The crew has had enough and abandons ship. Worst, this allows the fire to grow unchecked.


Undeterred the Union continues to advance. Layfayette and Choctaw on the right, with Chillicothe and the Argosy on the left. The abandoned Marmosa slows to a halt...and the fire burns itself out. This leaves the uncrewed Marmora floating in the middle of the battle.

CSS Missouri approaches slowly screened by Sumter. Chillicothe and Argosy in upper right corner. Missouri and Chillicothe by Thoroughbred Miniatures. Sumter, Argosy and Marmora by Bay Area Yards.


Lafayette and Choctaw maneuver through the minefield untouched. Choctaw by Thoroughbred Miniatures. Lafayette by Peter Pig.

Battery Savory scored a lucky hit on Choctaw's magaine resulting in a spectacular explosion that rained damage on Lafayette.

Next came the 'ramming portion' of the show. Chillicothe collides with Indianola. Arkansas rams the Argosy. Missouri plows into the side of Arkansas. It's a wreck. Ships start to blaze away at point blank range. Argosy suffers heavy damage (from ramming and 11" shells) and fails it's morale check...the crew abandons ship.

Inidianola rams the Chillicothe. Models by Thoroughbred Figures.



The train wreck of ramming....CSS Arkansas model in center and tinclads by Bay Area Yards. Others by Thoroughbred Figures.

USS Argosy (Bay Area Yards model) busrts into flame following heavy fire from Indianola, Arkansas and Missouri.


On the Union left, Chillicothe collides with Inidanola and attempts to board...and fails. Both models from Thoroughbred Figures.


With Chillicothe's wheels shot away, her captain orders the ship scuttled and the crew over the side. His plan - to blow the magazine and take Inidianola out in the blast. This would fulfill the mission requirements....at steep cost.

The Chillicothe bursts into a roaring fire. The countdown begins...can Inidianola get free in time.

(Ray: This is where I start quoting Khan from Star Trek II. "No, you won't get away this time....From hell's heart I stab at thee....")


Backing away from the blazing wrecks. Confederate victory is near...
I feel compelled to add that the Sumter, in turning around managed to sideswipe the riverbank and ground the stern of the ship. By the end of the game, the ship was still aground under the guns of battery Savory. Sumter fired a total of two shots the entire game.


In the end, the the Lafayette survives...barely. She's been shot to pieces and more drifts downriver than steams away. The Union have lost two ironclads and two tinclads and the Confederates have not lost a single ship. The result of the game - a resounding Confederate victory. There will be hard questions asked in Washington as to what transpired in the murky depths of Louisiana and why the navy ascended the river in the first place.

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CSS Mississippi - a comparision in 1/600

September 23, 2014, 7:17 pm
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Years ago, before the glorious golden age that Civil War naval games now enjoy, finding some of the more offbeat ship models was a challenge. So much so that we were reduced to having to scratch build some stuff to have a tabletop model. Reaching back into the archives I found one such project - one of my early attempts to model the never completed ironclad CSS Mississippi.

I started with some rough text descriptions - similar to CSS Louisiana, simple construction, two funnels. Now I had a model of CSS Louisiana from Thoroughbred Figures, so that became the benchmark of the project.

 
Thoroughbred's CSS Louisiana, with USS Minnesota in the background.
 
Sketching out some rough shapes gave me a workable hull form. I cut the rough shape from scored styrene. Around this I added strip styrene to give the shape of the wooden hull. Atop this, I added a casemate also cut from scored sheet styrene. The challenge was cutting the pieces correctly so that they assembled into a mostly square edged, sloped rectangular casemate. The result looked like this.

Ray's CSS Mississippi

It's a little crude and dated. The stacks and hatches are styrene. The ventilators were salvaged from a Sassacus kit that had been sacrificed to the parts bin. The upper deck of the casemate does not quite join with the port side of the casemate wall, but otherwise, it gives the impression of a large ponderous ironclad that would have been CSS Mississippi.

As the years rolled by, my scratch built model was no longer alone on the market. Bay Area Yards rolled out a growing product line that eventually included a model of CSS Mississippi.At some point I added this model to my collection. Research into ACW ships had advanced greatly (or else Stephen had done his homework) for this model differed greatly from my creation.

The Bay Area Yards CSS Mississippi
While the two models share some common traits - approximately the same length, two stacks and a armored pilot house, our execution of the ship varied greatly. Stephen had modeled a sleek, low ironclad that seemed to share more with CSS Atlanta than the Louisiana.
Ray's scratch build on the left, the Bay Area Yards model on the right.







This beam on shot shows the dramatic difference in heights between the two models.




The overhead shot shows the similar hull forms that still end up different.

The Bay Area Yardshull is likely a more accurate model, but I have a strong attachment to my model. I'll keep both in the collection, if only to remind myself of where my modeling skills were at back in the day.









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More 1/600 ACW naval fun

September 25, 2014, 8:27 pm
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A few pictures showcasing some of the recent and current projects on my workbench.

USS Minnesota with USS Housatonic on the starboard side.


Confederate gunboat Fanny alongside USS Minnesota. Models by BAY



Sidewheel transport from Thoroughbred Figures. The cargo is 15mm ammo crates from the Command Decision line.

A new model from Bay Area Yards - CSS Texas


CSS Columbia (top) from Thoroughbred and CSS Texas on the bottom.


Beam on comparison of the two models.

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