Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Basing and other fun things

About time for another wargaming update.

Plans continue back and forth via email with Stokes Schwartz for our game at the end of this month, fighting a slightly modified version of Charles S. Grant's Tabletop Teaser from Battlegames magazine issue 14. For those who haven't kept up with the details, Stokes will be supplying forces and table, and I will be commanding the troops of the Zichenau invaders remotely by email, with Stokes providing photographs and info of the battle each turn. I'm really looking forward to it. I've already written up my order of battle and initial orders, which Stokes will receive shortly before the game begins, after he's had time to select his own force. Neither of us will know the other's composition until the game begins.

The mailman has been helpfully delivering items since my last post, including another batch of Litko bases for my cavalry, and some more purple heart markers and mini smoke markers also from Litko. Also delivered were a small set of the new metal Spencer Smiths to finish out my troops on hand. Besides a few stray officers (two of which are even now being painted up by Stokes to command our forces in the game), my organization now provides a full 61-figure battalion of musketeer figures organized according to BAR's template, a 43-figure grenadier battalion organized on my own template, and a 12-figure cavalry squadron.

I also made my first attempt at assembling some of the movement bases that were delivered from Litko earlier. They fit very well, and I'm quite pleased, though I might have a go at finding a cheaper solution to be kind to the wargaming budget. At $5 or so a piece, they're not a bad price, but they do add up fast when you need 5-7 of them for a battalion. :>

I'm also pondering trying some black gesso as a basecoat, to see whether I like it or not.

Wal-mart has provided me with a half-dozen $1 porcelain Christmas buildings, which are a little larger than the 15mm J&R buildings, but perhaps still usable especially if I don't combine them in the same town. At any rate, the price was unrefusable. Home Depot also has contributed, with a bag of 21 flocked miniature trees for about $6-7. Five of them were too big for my purposes, but the other 16 should be quite usable. Not a bad price even for 16 trees.

1 comment:

Fitz-Badger said...

I'vre been using black gesso since hearing others taslk about it. And recently I've been adding some Future floor polish into the mix, which seems to help keep the black from rubbing off with all the handling my minis get while I'm painting them.