The week that was!

I’m amazed at how much thinking and reading I managed to achieve whilst immobilized for three days!

The cause of my immobility was the re-occurrence of a work related back injury, sustained over thirty years ago.

The following is what has occurred in the intervening time within my wargaming World:

DBA with a Twist ‘In depth’

Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to Canberra two weekends ago as planned, due to my back injury.  I was disappointed that I wasn’t able to travel down to catch up with friends and push some lead!

Equally, I was disappointed with the low number of players who attended.  Despite great organisation by David Lawrence, a Canberra stalwart, there were only six players competing this year, about half the number who attended the event last year!

Honours went to Doug Melville, who won the event with his Alexandrian Macedonians, (DBA Bk II/12) sourced from Tin Soldier.  Doug is an excellent player!

Mark Baker took out the Handicap or Magister Militum prize with his bow heavy force from Hatra (DBA Bk II/22 c) and Greg Kelleher achieved the Executor Award, taking five kills in a single battle, using his Asiatic Early Successor army, under Eumenes (DBA Bk II/16d).

Well done!

I note will be good practice for Greg, as no doubt he will be running this army in the campaign to be held at MOAB, later this year.

Little Wars Adelaide

Armed with a newly acquired Qantas voucher due to my cancelled Canberra trip, I have decided to trek to Adelaide, to compete in the DBA campaign, ‘Carthage must be Destroyed’, organized by Marcus Tregenza, as part of the Little Wars convention to be held there on 12 July 2014.

This will represent a number of firsts for me.  I have not previously played in Adelaide, I have not competed in a competition using the DBA 2.2+ variant of the rules, nor have I used a 28mm army in DBA.

At Marcus’s invitation, I have registered my interest to command a Polybian Roman legion (DBA Bk 11/33) from the pool of available loaner armies.  My selection is perhaps unsurprising, govern my election to use the tag ‘Scipio’ on the Fanaticus website.  Yes, delusions of grandeur!

I have downloaded all the material for DBA 2.2+ from the Washington Area De Bellis Antiquitis Gamers (WADBAG) website.  It’s a great resource for DBA gamers.  Marcus has also generously supplied me with a copy of his Quick Reference Sheet for DBA 2.2+.  So I have all that I need for a great weekend!

I’m looking forward to competing and attending at a different gaming venue and having an enjoyable weekend with friends, some of whom, I am yet to meet!

Projects

I started this blog in December 2013, with a mission statement, essentially to motivate myself to reduce my pile of unpainted lead which I have accumulated over thirty years. 

Four months into the challenge and I have not managed to paint as many figures as I had hoped, however I have been able to organize several projects, which for various reasons, I had allowed to stagnate.  Four projects are now on track, but in each case, more has to be done.

It is clear I have to many wargaming interests, which in turn, have generated projects that are incomplete. 

I have no intention of culling my interests/projects.  In fact, to the contrary, I will be expanding into several new areas, primarily 28mm skirmish, using rule sets such as SAGA and Chain of Command.

I already have two SAGA warbands, Anglo Saxon and Normans to be painted, the former, I acquired whilst in the UK in 2012.  Those figures have quite an accumulation of frequent flyer points! 

I also have figures to be painted as several factions in a Very British Civil War environment.  For several years, I have enjoyed reading blogs and forums detailing the ventures of other gamers in this era and am looking forward to getting into it.  I am also thinking of morphing this collection into a Spanish Civil War environment, but this remains in the planning stage.       

Essentially, I need to develop self-discipline to focus upon one project at a time, and keep at it until it is either complete (ie I have two armies or opposing forces painted and based ready for gaming) or I have eliminated all of the unpainted lead I have on hand for that particular project.

The first project to be subject to this new regime will be 15mm Colonials.  

To date, I have based all of the available painted Pathans in my possession.  I have none that are unpainted.  This represents the equivalent, in terms of ‘the Sword and the Flame’ rules, five clans of warriors (ie about 100 figures), led by a Mullah. 

To oppose this warrior horde, I have based the equivalent of a company of two platoons of British Sudanese, manufactured by Essex Miniatures and painted in the 1980s.  These figures are intended for use in the Sudan, but can initially be deployed as proxies for the correctly uniformed British forces which saw action in the North West Frontier.  The proper figures will be purchased at some later time.

The important factor is that once all of the bases have been properly flocked I can start to game with these figures in a campaign.  I can follow the likes of wargaming greats, Featherstone and Gilder, by naming the leaders of the opposing forces and develop a background for the units and give the various encounters I will game solo a context.

I also have painted: 78 Beja and 144 Dervish warriors, of whom 40 are armed with rifles.  Again these figures were sourced from Essex Miniatures and painted in the 1980s.  I have an additional 86 unpainted warriors to be added to this force, together with 21 Dervish warriors mounted on camels and 17 Dervish cavalry.

In terms of the rules, the infantry will initially be organized in three units of Beja warriors, five units of Dervish and four units of Dervish with rifles.  Re-enforcements will provide an additional unit of Beja warriors, and three more Dervish warriors.

These warriors will be supported by two captured artillery pieces and a unit of camel mounted Dervish.

I’ve ordered 300 20mm MDF bases from Back 2 Base IX in South Australia, so the first stage will be re-basing 222 15mm figures.  Then on to painting and basing the remainder!   

By mid July, I want to have painted the 104 15mm figures including 38 mounted and based 346 figures. 

The next task will be to base and paint any British stragglers I have, roughly a further hundred including a small Egyptian contingent.  This force will comprise artillery, a small party of naval brigade, camel corps and cavalry.

The completion of these forces will mean I will be able to plan and game another campaign, this one much larger to be contested in the Sudan.