Baueda Roman Fort

 I just finished a Roman Marching Fort from Baueda. This is a 15mm fort. I also made the "base" for it. I left the fort separate from the base. The fort itself is regulation sized for a DBA 2.2 BUA or built up area. The base adds some size to that for sure. The pictures do not do it justice. 

 

I tried to show a little perspective. I built up the area surrounding the fort to give it some realism. The stakes are set at ground level. The idea being you run up the hill, then fall off into/onto the stakes.

(Soon to be) On the Bench

Or on Brian's bench at least.

I joined in another Baueda kickstarter. Because I love Claudio's work. I picked up a DBA Army of Norse Irish (III/46). I need to base them and get them to Brian.

Jon L. was putting in an order for some WWII. I jumped in to get a Berlin or Bust Pak 40 and crew along with a deuce and a half. This will give my germans some needed artillery and my Americans a truck to pull their AT gun around. 

Lastly, some additional US Navy SEALS. These will complement my original Seal Team 6. These guys are awesome. One of them has bolt cutters and a sledge hammer on his back for breaching. Love it. Can't wait to see these. 

DBA at Dave's June 15, 2013

Dave A. had his annual DBA at Dave's tournament. Dennis, our game master of ceremonies picked Book I armies this year. With a twist! Everyone would need an ally! I teamed up with none other than Dave, himself! I brought I/52b Early Hoplite Greek - Spartans and Dave brought I/52d Early Hoplite Greek - Theban. We opted for the (limited) flexibility the Cv and Ps from Dave's army gave us. In hindsight, I probably should have taken the Horde option. We had the phalax thing covered.

Our first match was against Gary and Pete's doubled up I/26 Achains. Lots of chariots. There is not much you can do with 20 elements of Spears. We tried to cut the game board as much as possible. We lined up against the gentle hill to the right.

Pete split off his chariots and Psiloi, trying to flank our left. Dave ran his Cav out of our middle. It served to distract their other flanking move.

These guys were having dice trouble. Which is hilarious when Pete and Gary get going. Pete kept getting 1's. His chariots and Ps were stuck in place. We slowly marched across the field.

 We tied up the right for awhile. Pete was still stuck on the left. We edged closer. Die rolls were favoring us. It let us made that loonnnnggg march at 200 paces a shot. For some reason, I don't have a shot of the end of the game. They one. They got in our camp. They flanked us on both sides. It gave us ideas for the next battle though.

 The next game was against Mike and Ron. Mike had I/19 Mitanni and Ron had I/52f - Athenians. More Greek on Greek fighting. We tried to embrace a modified "turtle". We basically had the same board layout. We set up like this:

x x x x x x
x x x x x x
x x x x x x
x x x x x x

The plan was to stay small and see what they did. And then expand out.

Mike's Mitanni's goes for the flanks. We continue to spread the phalanx. Dave sends his Cav out to their flank, again, to distract.

I break off a couple of stands to protect our camp. Dave's Cav starts pushing back a chariot. I can see now that we should have put the camp in the middle of the board. Mike's line is fractured. 

 The chariots and psiloi come in. The Spartans hold and they start to gain ground on the flank. Always watching out for the pushback kill. Dangerously enough in a double line.

The battle for the camp starts here. That side of the board quickly devolved into a hot mess. Pushing and shoving with Dave's General. In the camp, out of the camp, zone of control of the camp. 

The Spartans split. Main line deals with the Chariots. Small group on the Psiloi. We push Ps back. Hard to kill. 

Spartans are doing what they do. Kicking butt. I press the chariots. I am doing well against them and decide to re-form the line.

 We ended up losing this one but it was CLOSE. I took out 6 of Mike's Mittani. They had our camp and took out Dave's General finally.

The team battle was interesting. I liked the learning experience. Spartans our tough. I think the next time I play them, I am just going to string them out and forgo the double rank (only against Kn and Sp). That seems to be the only way to protect the flank. I need to learn to use terrain better.

Camps Completed

I have been working on a lot of pieces at the same time lately.

 I made this DBA camp from some bamboo skewers that I chopped up! I'm pretty proud of myself. The log in the middle is from Baueda. Here is a rear view:

I am really happy with the way this turned out. I used some textured paint to work out the road/path section. Rocks and static grass and boom. I will probably use this for my Later Carthaginians.

These are some Roman tents - also from Baueda. I have a whole fort I need to put together. I have been working my way up to it. I like the way these came out too.

WIP: Spartans Complete

The Spartans are complete! My first 15mm army. I ran out of shield transfers. I needed 5. Mostly because I didn't follow the instructions from Little Big Men. The basing turned out well. I am carrying on the Rod Stafford basing tradition.

Now I need to practice with these guys!

I have re-read the DBA rules. I am paying particular attention to the bad going handicaps. That seemed to burn me the last time I played. This is an ALL SPEARs army. Line up and march. I can also stack them for a bonus.

I am tempted to start on the Polybian Romans or Later Carthaginians that I have. :)

WIP: 15mm Essex Spartans for DBA Part II

The Spartans started getting their shield decals today! While I was at it, I started to base them. I realized that I did not have enough transfers. This is mostly because I mangled a good half dozen of them before I figured out that I needed to remove the plastic covering.

Yes. I am an idiot. So - an order has been placed with Little Big Men Studios for resupply. I sent a note asking if there is a way to get some lambdas in bronze. I rather like the black shields. I think they really grunge these guys up. I saw someone else do these and it appealed to me. I like a warrior that doesn't Armour All his shield. I want the dirty scrappers. I am also toying with the idea of applying some weathering to these guys. I have some pigment. I'm nervous.

WIP: 15mm Essex Spartans for DBA

I've been doing a bad job of tracking the work on my Spartan army.

I am in the home stretch. I've tried to keep the colors both simple and historically accurate. Armor is mostly bronze with some leather mixed in. Tunics are either white or red. Shields are mostly bronze again with a mix of all black.

I need to touch up the arms, legs and faces. I also need to tip the spears. Then apply lambda decals and base 'em up. It has taken me a long time to do these. I also worked on some Warlord buildings during this time. I need to put pictures up of those too.

WIP: 15mm Essex Spartans

I attached the spears to the Spartans today. Hooooleeee Jeebus. That s.t.u.n.k. But, I'm done. Click the pics to see larger photos. You can see where I have started playing with some colors. I'm still taking a very old school approach. I primed them black, then I drybrushed white. I need that drybrush to pick out the details. We'll see how it goes. I am going to start with the flesh tone first. Work up from that layer. I gotta get these done so I can practice with them before June. 

Next up: Bolt Action battle report. Maybe some X-wing too. 

WIP: US Modern Vehicles Final

Thanks to Chris over at Small Scale Operations for the reminder that I never posted the final pictures of the US Modern vehicles I was working on!

I used Chris' paint scheme on these. I think it worked out very well. Keep in mind, these are the first things I have painted in 20 years. So be gentle with me. :)

Click the pictures to see them on a bigger scale. No decals on the humvees. I couldn't find enough surface area to use. And I am too shaky to free hand a chevron.

You can go here to see these minis in action. I was rushing to get these ready for the AK47 game in the battle report.

AK47 Battle Report: November 10, 2012

I got together with Gary, Mark and Mike on November 11, 2012 to play AK47. Gary had cooked up a scenario for us that allowed me to bring my US Marines. We basically ended up playing two 2 on 2 games on the same table. (Gary's table is about a football field in length).

I am still very much in the learning phase of AK47. This picture shows me trying to correct my mistake of driving into the town. I could have easily gone toe to toe with Gary's Africans but do to my stupidity with movement, I spent a lot of the game inching my way across the table.

The picture on the right shows my continuing blunders with movement. I went up on the hill on the left. My strategy from the jump was flawed. Take the hill. Take the town. It should have been, take the fight to them. Go AROUND the hill and the town. Gary blew up an infantry stand with an artillery strike. My Abrams tank was a reserve unit and I tried to get him into action as quickly as possible.

Here comes Gary's horde. They finally make it across the river. I am still trying to get my Bradley's out of the town. Gawd.

I did NOT get any pictures of the corner to the top left of these pictures. I actually had a helicopter on the board that spent a lot of time trying (successfully) to light up one of Gary's infantry stands.

Just in time for the time clock to expire, I finally start doing some damage. The Abrams is hammering away. The humvees are too. The Bradleys have caused a rout. It was not looking good for Gary's troops. :)

I definitely want to play on a smaller table. 3x3. Maybe 4x4. I really like the AK47 rule set. I love the random chaos it creates. I want to amp that up by closing the quarters a bit.

WIP: US Modern Marines

The figures are Modern US Marines from Rebel Minis. I bought an infantry pack and a command pack. (I also bought a pack of contractors but those will be saved for later.) I primed the minis with Army Painter Desert Yellow.

After priming, I gave them all a wash of Vallejo Sepia Wash (73300).

The first layer is a mix of 60% (ish) Vallejo British Tank Crew (321 Panzer Ace) and 40% (ish) Vallejo White (951 Model Colour). I am borrowing the scheme from a description on the Eureka forums for Moderns. I was trying for a dark sand look, almost clay. Almost gray. And I did a highlight. Very rough, I know I overlapped onto equipment, etc. But I like the shade from the wash. So I am sticking with it.

Next, I will do the packs and gear. I have a scheme for those as well.

DBA at Pair-A-Dice 10-20-2012

I played DBA on Saturday at Pair-A-Dice. I did horribly. And I could not roll a die for anything. Ugh. It was a frustrating day. I took my Order of St. John. I thought about bringing the Seljuk Turks. But I definitely need to start mixing it up. DBA at Dave's this summer is going to be Book I armies. I am going to get some Spartans.

 My first game was against Mark, part of my AK-47 crew. He brought Philistines. If you blow up the picture you can see the two chariots that I was worried about. You can also see my attempt to distract him. On my first turn, I ran 2 elements of psiloi down the left side of the board. They are in the woods.

The plan was semi-successful. I drew him out. But, even with Mark's steady 1's on the die, I could only kill 2 elements. He took 4 of mine for the win.

My second game was against Zip's Selucids. Two elephants. I lost this game, 0-4. I could not get the psiloi into position to go for the kill on the elephants. I pushed them back a few times.

Ultimately, I just could hold. 

Next up, Marian Romans. From Gary, another AK-47 crew member. I completely screwed the pooch on this. The green piece of terrain is a woods. With no trees. I thought it wouldn't be a problem to play with no trees. I quickly started viewing them as a hill. This was insanely stupid of me. I bogged EVERY element in the woods.

I lost 1-3. He killed my general.

In the woods.

Because I am an idiot. 

The games ended. Jeff won. Grats.

I played another game with Zip and his elephants. I took Early Crusaders. I bought these from Jeff. Rod S. had painted them and I wanted to add to my collection since he passed away. :(

I gambled. And lost. I gambled by running the Knights up the hill. Quick killed. Awesome.

All in all, possibly the worst day of DBA that I have played since starting out. Bad decisions. Stupidity. I was grumpy the rest of the day.

WIP: Modern US Vehicles IV

I applied the first dry brush highlight. I say first because I am already thinking about a final highlight of a lighter color just to pick off the edges.

I used a 1:1 mix of Vallejo Iraqi Sand (819) and Pale Sand (837).

And I am still following (mostly) Sgt. Scream/Chris's scheme. I like it. I am not sure the pictures are doing it justice. But these models look like they belong in the desert or even Afghanistan to me. Tomorrow, I will try to hit the black. Tracks and tires. And the weaponry.

I am planning on playing some Bolt Action tomorrow! Can't wait.

WIP: Modern US Vehicles III

The second layer is a 2:1 mix of Vallejo Beige (917) and Vallejo Desert Yellow (977).

I used a heavy dry brush technique. I can already see the difference between the completed tank and these models. The heavy handed dry brush lets more of the wash show.

Again, just the first coat. I need to paint the stowage and the treads/tires. And highlight.

Next step is the first true highlight layer.