KublaCon 2017

So, last weekend I was at KublaCon, a four day Con at the Hyatt Regency in Burlingame, CA.

Friday 3PM Speed-Painting!:

Speed-Painting contest! Can you paint a masterpiece in 40 minutes? Give it your best shot, and win fame, fortune and...Kublabucks! All materials are provided, and contestants are judged immediately after by Kubla Staff. Winners are invited back for a Masterclass Speed-painting session Sunday evening at 6:00 pm.

Pretty much as advertised. They gave ten of us the same mini, the same set of paints, the same brush, and generously allotted an extra five minutes. We were told to concentrate on the mini, not the base. There was some good-natured ribbing from my neighbor about how one was supposed to use as much bubble-gum pink as possible. Fellow contestants ranged from pros to people painting their first mini . . . ever.

And we were off! One of the hardest parts was using somebody else's paints, which had been in storage since last KublaCon. Everybody has their own mixes and preferred colors for shading, highlighting and washing, none of which were available here. Nor were said paints in the dropper bottles used by Reaper, Vallejo, and so forth - which allow for ready mixing. It was old-school with the linked acrylic paints you get in model kits for kids.

Quite a bit of fun. And not a bad bit of work, if I do say so myself:

I give you Urz the Destroyer, known to his friends as "Steve"

I'm quite proud of his bright blue eye, the slight gold tinge to his teeth (good old Goblo-Orcish dentistry there!), and the use of "bubble gum pink" and "melon" on his bracelet. The leatherwork came out rather well, too (raw and burnt umber, IIRC). I came in third, with an invite for the 6PM Sunday Masterclass SpeedPainting! contest.

Onward!

Friday 6PM Guinegate, 1479 - DBA 3.0 Big Battle:

Late 15th century battle between France and Austria. DBA 3.0 Big Battle rules with 15mm figures.

I'm a long-time DBA player, but hadn't had the chance to play the new(ish) 3.0 rules yet. Guingate was part of the Wars of the Burgundian Succession, and an interesting scenario. Both the French and the Habsburgs had two wings of knights and lots of artillery. The Habsburg center were pikemen, the French center the franc-archers. I had the French left wing, artillery, knights (always pronounced k-nigh-its), and a stand of dismounted men-at-arms.

My artillerists pretty clearly ate their Wheaties, rolling hot to destroy the Habsburg artillery in counterbattery fire, then tear up their supporting crossbowmen, then defeat the Habsburg pike in melee (must have been a double load of canister!). Rolling a lot of sixes helps. I suppose I actually have to pay them now . . .

My knights charged up the hill, soundly thrashed their Habsburg opponents, watched them flee toward the river in their rear, ready the pursuit, and look to the right to see the rest of the French army broken and streaming from the field. L'oops!

Sadly, I didn't take any photos, but I did win a coloring book:

Who doesn't like Gens d'Armes?

 Saturday, 9AM Battle Of Morleia, 1863 - The Sword and the Flame:

A little-known battle. The Republicans mass assault a Conservative held town during the
Maximillian Adventure in Mexico. “Victoria o Muerte!”

Two regiments of regular cavalry, one of irregular cavalry, four of militia, and two of regular infantry

This was the game I had come to play. I love colonials, and The Sword and the Flame is always an absolute blast to play. I am a serious fan of Science vs. Pluck, have played a whole host of enjoyable Plains Wars games with a homebrew ruleset, and naturally have my own ideas on one, but The Sword and the Flame is the granddaddy of them all. Colonials brings in an element of roleplaying that is often lacking in other periods, and that is a major appeal.

¡Arriba, arriba!

We were playing at more of the "800 Fighting Englishmen" scale, where a unit was a regiment, but it worked. I had the cavalry and two infantry brigades, tasked with taking the city's outskirts past the aqueduct and pushing into the city's flank.

The advance was . . . ragged. My cavalry and machete armed militia were keen to get to grips with the Maxamillians (routinely maxing out the movement dice), while the regular infantry sort of brought up the rear (what can you do when you roll 2 ones on 2d6?). With the Maximilians armed with modern rifles and in Category IV cover, there really wasn't much to do but close as fast as possible.

A great cheer went up as we took the first building in hand-to-hand combat. One militia unit was almost completely wiped out by defensive fire, only a brave seniorita and the Mexican flag surviving the hail of lead to make it to the first floor door.

Success!

With the Maximilian artillery still holding out on the roof of the white building, a further push was needed. Militia dashed across the narrow street into the basement of the white building. French sappers (boo!) tossed grenades in through the courtyard and followed up.

Yes, that Frenchman with a pistol. Machete him!

All to no avail. The French held the building.

Up came the cavalry, lead by their valiant brigadier, to charge the barricades and guns closing the streets. Hey, it works in the movies. Demolishing one barricade, a gray-clad regiment of Mexicans charge in. Vile contra-guerillas clatter through the streets to meet them. The Brigadier draws his sword and pistol . . .

Fierce fighting in the narrow streets. The lead lancer goes down, then another one. The Brigadier kills his first man, then his second, then the colonel of the  contra-guerillas! A fourth falls, then a fifth.

Calamity! A vile contra-guerilla skewers the Brigadier, and he falls to the ground, dead (bad time to roll a one, slick).

Pressing on, the Lancers rout off the rest of the contra-guerillas, ready to charge the commander of Moriela itself in the rear . . . and fail to close. (bad time to forget you had a reroll!)

The fall of Moriela

Ultimately, the cavalry pressed through both streets, aided by the capture of several buildings on the other side of the canal. Note the Maximilians still hold all three of the outbuildings, it being very difficult to survive defensive fire with small, shot up units, and even harder to kill the key figures with musketry.

Always appreciated

Saturday, 3PM Rage of the Monsters! - Giant Monster Rampage:

Come and battle some of the greatest monsters the world has ever known! Rain destruction down upon the unsuspecting citizens of the city and see who will be king of the monsters!

Destroyah!

This looked like a fun game. Who doesn't like giant monsters and destroying poor defenseless cities . . . erm, urban renewal?

Poor defenseless city

Ultimately, I gave up my spot so a little girl and her dad could hop in. After all, who doesn't want to encourage new blood in the hobby? Walking by from time to time, it certainly looked like people were having fun, and the city pretty much in ruins.

Sunday, 10AM DBA Tournament - DBA 3.0:

De Bellis Antiquitatis 3.0 Tournament (15mm). Bring your own armies, but there will be many armies provided as well. Come and try out the new version of this classic quick play Ancient Rules.

Later Polish - As taken, 4x3Kn, 4x3Cav, 2x8Cb, 2x2Lh

This was both fun and a disappointment.

Fun because I liked what I had seen of DBA 3.0 on Friday, and had a beautifully painted Later Polish army on loan from the gamemaster to play with.

Disappointing because there were very few other players. I ended up doing best 2 out of 3 with a player fielding Teutonic Knights (boo!), and one or two people joined in later with some Classical Greek armies.

The Later Polish army was fun, but had one serious problem - the knights. In DBA, if a knight wins a combat, they must follow-up. Inevitably, if you don't roll high enough in melee, that results in pushing the enemy back just enough so that one stand of knights penetrates, gets doubly-overlapped, and killed when you equally inevitably, roll a 1.

The fatal scrum with the Teutonic Knights

Which is pretty much what happened. As the defender (Aggression 1 means you're almost always the defender against a high aggression army), you get to set up the terrain. One item I picked is the infamous Barker river, which can be paltry (1-2 on a d6), slow things down (3-4 on a d6), or slow things down and aid the defenders (a 5-6 on a d6).

Seeing the Teutonic knights hung up on the river, I sensed opportunity. We charged down off the hill in the bend, caught them in the water, pushed them across, and then promptly died as the fatal overlaps kicked in.

What do you mean, don't roll I?

Game 2, I replaced the river with a built-up-area, garrisoned it with crossbows, and readied for the inevitable clash.

Fewer photos this time, but it pretty much played out the same way. My Polish knights would defeat their Teutonic counterparts, driving them back but not killing them. Once stuck into the Teutonic ranks, I'd roll an I (I was using roman numeral dice) and die.

So, two 4-3 victories to the Teutonic Knights, for a 2-0 result overall. DBA 3.0 is quite different from DBA 2.2, and well worth purchasing and dusting off my armies.

Sunday 3PM Battle of Gettysburg - Little Round Top - This Hallowed Ground v2.1:

The fighting at the Little Round Top during the Battle of Gettysburg was made famous by the actions of the 20th Maine. Complete with that action, and the action around Devil’s Den, can the Confederate army push the Union flank?

Shameless commercial plug

This was the last of seven games put on by a gaming group out of Fremont, CA. Consistently, they had the best looking games at the Con, and you can read their summary (and drool over the photos) at Jay's Wargaming Madness. The rules were a simple but realistic homebrew they've been using for a while, and have in Napoleonic and Civil War flavors. Here, a unit was a battalion, regiment, or battery and players push a brigade. Most battles handle a division, and they have a pretty good little morale system.

I hadn't been able to get into their modern, Napoleonic or Pickett's Charge and McPherson's Ridge games, but by Sunday night, with the Con winding down, I saw a seat available and snapped it up.

20th ME, 83rd PA, 44th NY and 16th MI

The scenario was a compressed part of the fighting on the Union Left Flank on Day 2 of Gettysburg.
I was handed Vincent's Brigade (3rd Brigade, 1st Division, V Corps, Army of the Potomac,) and given the end of the Union line, told to hold Little Round Top.

Given the Confederate dispositions, I was told, if practicable, to push up Big Round Top and flank 'em. As it turned out, those instructions were rather prophetic.

Massed on Big Round Top were five Confederate regiments, from two different brigades. Half the Confederates (Hood's Texans), pushed across the valley into the Devil's Den. Three regiments decided to slow down and deploy for a musketry duel with my brigade. Snug behind fat rocks on high ground, and with an extra regiment and battery in my favor, I decided to oblige them.

The rules are generally a bucket of dice game, with lots of d6 rolled for firing or melee (number based on formation), with attendant saves and modifiers. Morale is basically rolling higher than the number of casualties you've taken. Depending on how shot up you are, you may have to check to see if you obey orders.

 Simple, easy to learn, lots of fun.

Colonel Vincent's view

A more God's eye view of the action

Fortunately, I had purchased quite a few dVI from the Chessex booth at the Dealer's Hall. Given the academic bents of both Vincent and Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of the 20th Maine, using the Roman Numeral dice seemed apropos.

Nothing like a bit of crass commercialism between games

Lots of IV, V and VI (needed for hits and passing morale) and V and VI (needed to make saves) followed, and soon the Confederate regiments were shot up.

At this point, the game master passed by and handed me a new miniature. He hadn't mentioned it in the pregame brief, because none of the playtesting had born it out, but there was a special Chamberlain rule, allowing me to reroll tests to charge and morale checks for one turn.

With the Rebs faltering and pulling back, it seemed time. Especially since the Devil's Den had fallen, and the Confederates were pushing the other Union forces back to the swamp.

BAYONETS!!!!!!

View from the Confederate lines

The Chamberlain miniature was mostly for the photographs. The few Confederates left mostly pulled back, and their departure from the field was hastened by a few volleys of musketry fire. But the timely move up Big Round Top secured us ten victory points, holding Little Round Top netted five more, and the three Confederate regiments leaving secured another three, contributing eighteen to the overall Union score of twenty-four. With the Confederates securing the Devil's Den and chewing up the Union forces there, it was a draw, 28 (Confederate) to 24 (Union), or pretty much how it turned out historically.

Plus, it was a beautiful game - beautifully painted miniatures on absolutely beautiful terrain. Exactly what I needed to inspire me to get back to painting.

So that was KublaCon. In the week since, I have finished up another few miniatures for my Colonials, and am itching to get back to my Plains Wars collection. Also, I need to get one of those teddy bear mats.

Huzzah!

Expanding the Library, not the Lead Pile - the Challenge Economics.

Curt has recently posted some interesting statistics about the economic impetus of the recently completed I've been pretty good about restraining my purchase impulse during the Challenge. The only figures I purchased were a set of Foundry Darkest Africa European Ladies Two off ebay, rebranded as Roses of the Empire - DA018:

 

Terrain and base purchases were a bit more extravagant. I bought 60 2mmx25mm diameter and 20 3mmx30mm diameter slotted bases from Warbases, along with a bunch of their counters to use for missile salvo markers in Silent Death and Full Thrust. I also bought one of their Long Walls from the Middle Eastern range. It's a bit thin for anything but a building wall, but it's inexpensive, ships well, fit together nicely and with a textured spray paint, wash and dry brush will look splendid.

I also purchased a 28mm domed Middle Eastern building off ebay. It's roughly three stories, with two balconies/verandahs, and the option of either a dome or a flat roof. I am setting up to do mostly skirmishish (1 snuffy figure represents roughly two real snuffies, and "heroes" are 1:1), so buildings that allow figure placement inside them are essential. 

 I also purchased two Ziterdes Desert Sanctuaries (for about half retail) off Amazon. Unfortunately, they're one piece castings, so they'll have to serve as towers and impenetrable areas. I'm thinking of making a compound with four of them, connected by some Warbases walls.

But the main expenditures have been in books (and paying off that pesky library fine, because they expect the damn things back). The following recently arrived from Amazon:

• Beyond the Khyber Pass: The Road to British Disaster in the First Afghan War ~ John H. Waller
• Donald Featherstone's Wargaming Campaigns ~ John Curry
• Donald Featherstone's Solo Wargaming ~ John Curry

The following are also on order:

• Richard Simkin's Uniforms of the British Army: The Cavalry Regiments ~ W. Y. Carman
• The Seleucid Army: Organization and Tactics in the Great Campaigns (Cambridge Classical Studies) ~ Bezalel Bar-Kochva

Half-Price Books also made the mistake of issuing a 50% off coupon, and it was promptly pillaged. I think the building is still standing, but don't hold me to it. The haul:

• Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander the Great's Empire ~ Robin Waterfield
• The Victor's Crown: A History of Ancient Sport from Homer to Byzantium ~ David Potter
• That Sweet Enemy: The French and the British from the Sun King to the Present ~ Robert and Isabelle Tombs
• Fusiliers: Eight Years with the Redcoats in America ~ Mark Urban
• Napoleon's Immortals: The Imperial Guard and its Battles, 1804-1815 ~ Andrew Uffindell
• Blue-Water Empire: The British in the Mediterranean Since 1800 ~ Robert Holland
• The Opium Wars: The Addiction of One Empire and the Corruption of Another ~ W. Travis Hanes III and Frank Sanello
• The Afghan Way of War: How and Why They Fight ~ Robert Johnson
• Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, The West and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War ~ Stephen Platt
• Invading Mexico: America's Continental Dream and the Mexican War, 1846-1848 ~ Joseph Wheelan
• Hero of Beecher Island: The Life and Military Career of George A. Forsyth ~ David Dixon
• The Wilderness Campaign ~ Gary W. Gallagher, Ed
• Setting the Desert on Fire: T. E. Lawrence and Britain's Secret War in Arabia, 1916-1918 ~ James Barr
• Operation Kronstadt: The True Story of Honor, Espionage, and the Rescue of Britain's Greatest Spy, The Man with the Hundred Faces ~ Harry Ferguson

I also passed on a few books about the Victorians and Dickensian London. In retrospect, they were both possibly worthy purchases, and I may snap them up later. Generally, I prefer hardbacks to paperbacks - they last better, and travel better.

So that's my contributions to the wargaming economy during Challenge-Time. Anything picked up at the SYW convention this weekend will be counted separately.

What I've been working on

I've been in a bit of a painting slump recently. Any project gets 3/4ths done, and then something else takes my fancy.

So I have tried to impose some discipline on my painting, while still enjoying what I'm working on and finishing something. Repainting a kitchen, a front hall and assorted stuff does not count.

So here's what I've finished lately:

What do you mean I cannot mix periods like this?

1 French Musketeer from Regiment Languedoc for the Dutch Wars
1 Mexican Infantryman for the 1860s/1870s clashes with Apaches, Comanches, Kiowas and the US Army.
1 Mounted English Civil War Royalist cavalry senior officer - tentatively for Sir Humphrey Bennett's Regiment of Horse
9 Sassanid Clibinarii

They show off several new facets of my painting ability. When I paint 15mm figures, I glue cavalry to the horse and paint them as one unit. I'd originally done that with 25mm figures as well. However, it posed problems - especially when putting multiple figures on a single base. It was very difficult to maneuver a paint brush around to paint the figure, let alone spackle, paint, gravel, wash, dry brush and static glue the bases.

So now I mount cavalrymen on a nail in a wine cork glued to a soda cap, while I glue the horse to another soda cap. It makes things much easier to manipulate and get into the empty corners.

Only the two infantrymen were fresh paint jobs.

The 9 Clibinarii were the second part of 18 I purchased from Gripping Beast last year. I hated painting those figures. The horse and men had serious flash issues, to the point where I had to take a Dremel tool to them just to get the bows to fit in the hands of the figures. Gluing the bows in was also a pain. About halfway through, I decided I thoroughly hated how they were coming along and threw them in some Pine Sol to start over.

I started over. As my confidence has grown, I have begun to attempt more elaborate armor patterns, similar to those done by An Hour of Wolves and Shattered Shields. I have yet to do any quartering, but I have done single horizontal lines and double horizontal lines and vertical lines. I'm quite pleased with some of the color combinations:

Double white and green horizontal lines. Very colorful.

White and red horizontal lines. This one was very involved, but worth it.

Ignore the fuzzy Cavalier in the way; ooh and aah at the yellow and blue striped lamellar armor.

I took a different tack with these. Instead of just randomly using a color, the way I had with previous Sassanids, I took a "knight" approach and tried to give each figure a set of colors to tie them together.

All the unit needs is their flag. I have some interesting flag patterns from Shadows in the Desert, but those will be used on the general vignette. These may just get an A&A standard of ribbons on a pole.

The Cavalier was also a repaint of a figure I had first painted at 18/19. It was a good paint job for somebody starting out, but I can do MUCH better now. With a lot (40 Old Glory Cavalry, 6 boxes of Warlord Cavalry, 2 boxes of Dragoons and another four boxes of Infantry) more ECW figures in my possession that need painting and basing, it seemed far more effective to strip them down and rework. So into the Pine-Sol they went.

The officer is a test figure for how to paint buffcoats and blackened armor. When I'd originally painted the figure, I just painted the coat and leather equipment white, and the armor silver, then hit it with a Minwax stain. It worked, sorta. Now that I'm much better, I went with something different.

The armor was primed black, painted with Reaper's Blackened Steel, then hit with Vallejo's black ink wash. It gives me the very effect I was looking for - metallic, but dark. Fairly straight forward. The buffocat was actually painted using Reaper's Blond Hair triad. I wanted the coat to stand out from the leather boots and leather cross belts. I'd also read how variable buffcoat quality can be, and that the better quality coats are lighter. Since this fellow is a colonel at 1644 scale and a captain for Once Upon a Time in the West Country, it seemed logical to go lighter. I'm pleased with how it worked out.

Next up is a Sassanid general vignette:

Planned vignette - cavalry general exhorting the troops (A&A), standard bearer (A&A) and drummer (Gripping Beast)

Their horses

Then more Gripping Beast cavalry. The Light Cavalry is much better behaved, but I still have to deburr two standard bearer hands to put the Essex horsetail standards in them.

Rumors of this blog's demise are slightly exaggerate

I've been slowly making my way through the pile of pewter on the painting table, as the winds and period enthusiasms take me. Since Sunday is usually slow at my LGS, I decided to take some pictures.

One of my projects is a 25mm Sassanid army for Might of Arms. The Sassanians (in 15mm) were the first Ancients army I ever collected, and so I'm quite partial to them. Might of Arms is a fast playing, quite flexible, and quite enjoyable "all period" ancients game. While it is probably a bit too generous in your ability to command your troops, it does provide a good compromise on playability and accuracy. I rather enjoy it.

One of the members of the club has always wanted a 25mm Belisarian Byzantine army, so I agreed to paint Sassanids. Might of Arms provides suggested Army lists, which while FAR too small at the given 1:50 scale to recreate historical battles, are at least illustrative of what size armies the game can handle in an afternoon, and what the ratios of forces are. While Christmas is probably too ambitious a completion date


The current objective is the "left wing" of the Sassanian Army. Three regiments of clibinarii (9 figures each), three regiments of light cavalry (4-6 figures each) and a general. So far, two of the clibinarii are completed, and the third is on the painting table.

Clibinarii Regiment #1 from the front:

Rear:

Side, with a close-up of the shields:

The figures are a mix. Standard bearer and musician are Gripping Beast, while the troopers are all Old Glory. Lances are from Xyston, and the standard is from Essex. Shields are all Little Big Man transfers for Gripping Beast miniatures.

Sassanid Clibinarii Regiment #2:

Side view:

You can clearly see how my basing style changed radically from Regiment #1. Regiment #1 had the base painted with Delta Ceramicoat Mississippi Mud, then immediately dipped in the rock. Silfor tufts were later glued on. For Regiment #2, I paint the base Mississippi Mud, glue rock to it, wash it with GW flesh wash, then dry brush it with Delta Ceramicoat Teddy Bear Brown, Vallejo Thick Ochre, and then Delta Bamboo. Dry and Summer grass mixtures are then glued to the base to finish it. I'm much happier with the results, and given the possible terrain in the Sassanian Empire, it's still equally plausible.

My painting style has also advanced. Every figure has at least a base color and highlight everywhere, and large expanses are shaded, main colored, and then highlighted.

All of these are Gripping Beast, with the large draco standard by Essex. I had high hopes for the figs, and I was sadly disappointed. There were LOTS of issues with flash. To make the bows fit, I spent an afternoon with a Dremel buzzing out their hands. The horses also had a LARGE amount of flash, especially around the forelegs. Finally, the draco - while VERY pretty - is also fragile.

The results are pretty, but they're a LOT of work. I'm not that motivated to get back to Regiment #3, about 1/2 done. Instead, my colonials collection has absorbed my fancy, with 15mm Napoleonics fighting for second place. But, as they say, that is a blog post for another day.

First Sassanid Clibinarii are almost done!

I'm waiting on the Gripping Beast shield transfers to finish setting before they get varnished and based.

Pictures will come tomorrow.

Edit. The bases for the figures are 2mm longer than the 60x40mm bases for them, and I cannot find my clippers. Pictures will have to wait.

I just hope they fight the Byzantines as hard as they fought me! These guys did NOT want to be painted one bit.