Wow! I've painted stuff.

Had a tremendous time at the Weymouth Wargames Weekender. Thus is my fourth year in a row and I managed a record 11 games. I even won a few!

Admittedly 4 of the games were the fast paced Pieces of Eight Pirates Land Raid game which plays out in under an hour. But it's shaping up to be a great game as is the ships side of the game. I heartily recommend watching Black Sails on Amazon to get some inspiration.

Here we see playtesting of the ships game underway with Martin G and Simon P taking on Miles M and Les B-T.

It'll come as no surprise that I have a few ships waiting to go under the brush. Not yet got any figures for the land raid - that will have to wait until after Christmas now as I have just taken receipt of my very own Christmas box from Peter Pig with AWI cavalry (at last) and the last few figures for my ACW collection. Both additions mean I can now at last play all of the historical scenarios in bith Civil War Battles and Washington's Army.

In preparation for the weekend I thought to myself what shall I take down. I was committed to play a game of Bayonets and Ideology so knew I needed my Anarchists. I was also signed up for a game of Western. I had purchased a Lawmen/Posse force a while ago. As usual they had been put away in the drawer as I cracked on with ither projects.

Suddenly inspiration hit me at around 12.39hrs on the Wednesday b3fore I was due to drive to Weymuth on the Friday. Cowboys wear mostly brown and black don't they? So I decided to paint 50 odd mounted cowboys along with 50 odd dismounted cowboys to take with me.

The picture above is the finished force, and from bare metal in plastic bags to this stage took just over 24 hours. Actual painting time always less - I didn't work around the clock. Probably between 6 and 8 hours of actual work time I would guess.

They won't hold up to scrutiny close up but from the tabletop they look pretty good. Goes to show what a nice base will do for a figure too. They were sprayed Army Painter Leather Brown which is a really excellent colour to base coat with. I then selectively dry brushed various shades of tan, lighter browns and khakis and creams. A few odd washes with blues or blacks and then selective washes using one of four GW washes - Agrax Earthshade, Reikland Fleshshade, Seraphim Sepia (this was brilliant) and Nuln Oil. I would for example use one shade on the horse, a different one on the coat and another on the trousers. The effect was pretty good to give varied tones across the whole force, with a dirty and dusty palette. It'll be a technique I shall return to.

Here are a couple of shots of them in action.

I played three games over the weekend with them, all against Plains Indian forces. I won one, losing two. One of the losses was probably my favourite game. I was playing alongside Mark R against Rob R and Miles M. The Indians as attackers had first turn and destroyed two of my 4 units. A third also suffered some casualties. All before we had had a turn ourselves! It was too much for mark who wondered off elsewhere leaving Martin G to jump in his place. We then proceeded to put up a stout defence with what we had left in a homestead in the middle of the table with Injuns all around us. It was only in the last turn that my commander 'Bad Bob' finally fell and the game was lost. But it goes to show you should never throw in the towel and there is still fun to be had in making the most of a bad situation.

This was the only picture I took of the Bayonets and Ideology game. I teamed up with Rob R using my Anarchist Militia against Mike H using his Assault Guard assisted by Chris. This was another great game. I threw away countless men trying to take the bridge objective seen in the distance. Between my men and the prize was a gully through which I attempted numerous assaults against Chris's defending platoon. I was winning the war of attrition but time ran out as the countdown reached zero. One more turn and would probably have taken the objective!

No pictures of the Pirate Land Raid game. It is still in playtesting but feels close to completion. I think the only issue is a balancing of the victory  point schedule. It is a quick and bloody game with the raiders needing to get in, plunder as much as possible and get out again before they get ground down in firefights and melee.

I arrived home from the weekend enthused to paint more and so have been completing the figures needed for all of the historical scenarios in the Civil War Battles and Washingtons Army rulebooks. The aim is to finalise this by the years end and then its onto doing the same with my Bloody Barons and Battles in the Age of War rule books. The majority of the Bloody Barons figures are based and ready for painting. The Samurai figures are mostly purchased.  Rumour has that Bloody Barons is the next set of rules to get a make over which I will look forward to.

Enough for now. Play nice.

More soon...