Saturday 31 December 2016

It's beginning to look a lot like Georland....


Progress report on Georland for 2016

My main wargaming projects in 2016 have been building my Interwar forces, assembling a small Lamming Roman Army with British/German opponents, painting and organising my Minifigs S Range French Revolution and Egypt armies, and getting to a point where I can start some Georland gaming.

For the last few months I have been concentrating on painting and organising my Minifigs S Range Franco Prussian War figures with the intention of using them for Georland wargaming (as well as for Franco Prussian War).

Originally I had intended to use my existing and large collection of S Range Crimean figures, with British for Georland, and Russians for their opponents, supported by the FPW Germans.

However, as the FPW collection grew in size I decided to use it instead. This is mainly because the original collection of George Keef were Franco Prussian War figures of the time which were bought up cheaply. Obviously there are compromises to be made in identifying units designated as Highlanders or Grenadier Guards with French types, but this somehow seemed true to George Keef's original figures and therefore appropriate.

(Of course I could have taken this further, e.g. by using Irregular Miniatures Shiny Toy Soldiers range, but issues of cost and space rules this out). If I was starting from scratch and money was no object then I would have loved to go with Spencer Smith Classic Range, although the idea of gluing all those arms on would put me off.

I think a lot of any wargames project depends on your aesthetic - the look and feel of the thing - and I think I have got this sorted out. I am very happy with the S Range figures; they are simply block painted, with unflocked bases. Figures are on individual MDF bases, 20 x 20mm for foot and 20 x 40mm for mounted figures. Exceptions are generals and some foot unit command stands, on round bases of different sizes denoting rank.



Figures are then placed in movement trays, accommodating 60 x 40mm internally for infantry and cavalry, and 80 x 40mm for artillery (gun and four crew). The basic cavalry unit is the squadron, with two trays of three figures each (total 6) and infantry are 24 - four trays of 6. This allows for casualty removal and fits well in the storage I am using for the figures. The movement trays can accommodate blanks - MDF bases of the correct size - if I don't have the exact number of figures for a unit. A small number of light units are using 20mmx 100mm movement trays.

I have decided I will be using a hex based set of rules to de developed from Command and Colours Napoleonic. I hope this will only need a few tweaks to ranges etc but I haven't started work on this yet. I also haven't started in sorting out scenarios and orders of battle from the Georland Journal, or working out which Georland units my FPW figures can represent.

I have a Corsec Engineering fleece mat - open fields design with a 6" hex overlay. I am waiting for some 1" tall MDF hexes for hills, and have also found some 4" tall polystyrene hexagon cake making blanks. These are ever so slightly smaller than 6" but I hope have potential for providing higher hills, either as is or by carving with a serrated knife.

Finally I have been collecting from Ebay built HO gauge German railway scenery kits which look generally suitable for around 1870. I don't mind then being in a smaller scale than the figures - I have always been comfortable with 15mm buildings with 20mm figures, for example. "Proper" 25mm buildings would be too big for my table and the railway models option probably gives a wider choice of suitable buildings. Most of these buildings are by Vollmer, although one or two are Kibri.


Headquarters or hospital building


Grand houses


Apartment Buildings


Factory, chimney and houses

I am also photographing the troops, but my camera lights can only be used for 10 minutes at a time so this is slow going. I will be posting pictures here, and on my History of Georland and Lone S Ranger blogs, so they should be hard to miss.

The plan is to start gaming in January or February.

Sunday 13 November 2016

Rospak peltasts

I was contacted by Alan who had these Rospak Peltasts for sale. There were 18 figures, one of whom has a broken javelin.

THESE FIGURES HAVE NOW BEEN SOLD

Wednesday 27 July 2016

Interwar Half Track upgrade



I recently acquired two Shapeways Burford Kegresse MG Carriers by Fitz to replace my earlier dogy scratchbuilds.

These are lovely models and a great improvement on my earlier efforts. My thanks to Fitz for producing a model of a vehicle I never expected to be available (along with the Russian MS-1 and T-27s he has done).



Fitz's Shapeways shop, which has all sorts of goodies for 28mm, 20mm and 15mm, can be found at this link:

Fitz's Shapeways Shop




Interwar Half Track upgrade



I recently acquired two Shapeways Burford Kegresse MG Carriers by Fitz to replace my earlier dogy scratchbuilds.

These are lovely models and a great improvement on my earlier efforts. My thanks to Fitz for producing a model of a vehicle I never expected to be available (along with the Russian MS-1 and T-27s he has done).



Fitz's Shapeways shop, which has all sorts of goodies for 28mm, 20mm and 15mm, can be found at this link:

Fitz's Shapeways Shop




Saturday 12 March 2016

More Interwar Pathe News

Two interesting clips which have recently been posted on the VBCW Forum. The first is called Battle of the Machines - Longer Version 1930

  

 It has some great pictures of loads of Vickers Medium IIs, from the Salisbury Plain Northland?Southland exercises. Clearly the crews preferred being on their tanks rather than in them where possible. No sign of lances with the cavalry. It is also particularly interesting to see the Carden Loyds with the QF 3.7" howitzer - it looks like two Carden Loyds per dun, one towing the gun on its tracked trailer, the other the crew in a tracked personnel trailer. It is particularly interesting to see the guns being loaded onto the tracked trailers for motorised towing - they seem able to get into/out of action very quickly.

The second is Tanks 1935

  

 This has interesting shots of two Medium Mark IIIs and is very helpful for vehicle markings etc. At c3.15 it has what seems to be an MG-only armed command Mark II, which I have never come across before.

Sunday 14 February 2016

Happy Valentine's Day

So you can all pick your own Valentine...