Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Sailing into Revolution

So currently the working title of my To Covet Glory supplement is Sailing into Revolution. I am not sure I like it yet. There are 10 historical actions detailed. Some have multiple scenarios in each one. There is a generator for creating convoy actions. The scenario portion is standing currently at 45 pages. Then I am detailing the ships of the Royal Navy by providing stats for Royal Navy vessels below the rate. There are hundreds of vessels detailed. Most are complete stats that can be used in your own games.

I have been tinkering with my 3d printer. I have managed to get some better prints by lowering the support density. I was having trouble getting reliable prints on sails. I was breaking the print attempting to remove the supports. I think I have this fixed. I am hoping to get some painting in soon.

Friday, January 26, 2024

January's Almost Over

As January comes to a close, I am happy to report that I have completed 9 scenarios for my AWI book for To Covet Glory. The scenarios are not just single actions in many cases. The one on Convoys gives a template for making convoy attack scenarios for for various theaters giving the player the ability to create random forces to the scenarios with sample merchant vessels. Others include small campaigns following the actions of a particular privateer.

The part still in progress is working through the stats for the vessels of the Royal Navy for the period. Thus far I have seventy-nine ship sloops sorted out based on the books by Winfield on the Royal Navy. I have started work on the Brigs but have much more work to do. There are still Schooners and Cutters to start.

I just started to 3D printing again. I have started on a small Bermuda Sloop and a skiff that I have scaled down from the original 28mm models down to 1/700th scale. I am experimenting with the support density as I previously had too many and the models broke when removing supports from the models. Hopefully this will be successful. In Chitubox, the models looked like they would work.

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

Happy New Year

2023 has come to a close and 2024 has started. I had a good Christmas that netted me some new books. I picked up British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793-1817 by Rif Winfield. While it is outside of the period that I am working on for the AWI scenarios, it is actually a significant help. It has shed some light on ships from the AWI as there were numbers of veterans of the AWI that continued service into the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. I also picked up James Henderson's Frigates - Sloops & Brigs. It is two books published together and was a great read. It gave me some ideas about the use of tenders. The British had armed tenders serving larger vessels to expand their reach. I have previously looked at examples around Charelston in the early stages of the AWI. These two have given me additional information to push forward on the AWI scenarios.

I also picked up Sacrifice on the Steppe: The Italian Alpine Corps in the Stalingrad Campaign, 1942–1943 by Hope Hamilton. This could become a follow up to In the Name of Roma.

Santa left me two new jugs of water washable rein under the tree this year. I have already used it to print out some 1/700th scale ships for a convoy scenario for To Covet Glory. With 1/700th scale, I find that I can get more than one complete ship on the build plate unlike 1/300th scale. I am trying to find out how to print out some smaller vessels than what are currently available. I am having fun with the resin printer. It seems to be much more straight forward than the filament printer I was using earlier.

I have found a figure to convert for my 1982 Israelis for Lebanon. I plan on printing a few and seeing how they look when I match them with my exising Peter Pig miniatures. I printed a Merkava Mk2 that came out rather well. I need to sand the barrel a bit to fit with the turret. Somehow I lost the turret hatch cover and need to print that.

------- 15 days later ---------

Somehow I forgot to hit the publish button here. I found out that even with water washable resin, you MUST wear gloves. The resin gave me a bad rash and swelling around both eyes when printing. It took about a week to heal. I am going to invest in lots of gloves. Will probably wear a mask and goggles as well.

I did purchase a 3d Model for a Bermuda Sloop from Wargaming3d. The model is very nice and the producer was more than willing to talk to me. I am shrinking the hull down to 1/700the scale. I am printing it with and without guns. For a mast and spars set, I had tinkered with some for a cutter a while back and I am going to try to reuse that even though the topsail will be too large for a Bermuda sloop.

I had done some more work on my AWI book for To Covet Glory. I am having great fun going through Winfield's book on the Royal Navy in the Age of Sail. He has a vast amount of information on ships below the rate. Thus far I have been making ship stats for all of the Ship Sloops of the Royal Navy. It has shown me a few mistakes in the original To Covet Glory. I will have to update the book at somepoint.

Monday, November 20, 2023

Thanksgiving

As we approach the Thanksgiving Holiday I just want to send out a thank you to the few of you out there reading my scriblings. I hope you have enjoyed this blog and the intent is to post more as I can. Thank you.

I have a quick recap of projects that I have tinkered with.

To Covet Glory

The scenario pack is coming along. I have made a concious decision to pause work while I get ready to make a bunch of ships for it. I am struggling with what do do. I have a significant fleet in 1/300th scale. These are mostly Sea Dog Studios and some War Artizan paper models. The issue is the War Artizan look great on their own but next to Sea Dog, they look a bit odd. I have printed some Henry Turner miniatures upscaled to 1/300th but the detail starts to go when expanding from 1/700 to 1/300.

The scenarios that I am looking to do will need some merchant ships. I purchased several Henry Turner models of indiamen and some usable merchant men. If I expand these to 1/300th scale, they will be too large for my build plate. So I have decided to make some 1/700 scale models. This should allow me to expand the models that I get onto the table. I should be able to print a number of frigates as well. These will end up being used for larger scenarios. Particularly the scenario I am doing for a convoy raid.

Sharp Practice

I am still looking to where to create a new project. I have a few ideas. The fourth book in my AWI series is always on my mind. I have started it four times now and will finish it one day. It will cover the Continental Retreat into North Carolina and drawing Conrwallis' forces north and ultimately to Yorktown. I need additional resources. Most of my books cover South Carolina and Georgia. I am not sure what I am calling it yet. I have twenty-six pages of notes thus far.

There is also a thought on a Seven Years War campaign featuring Freikorps troops. This one is based on period training manuals on petiete guerre. I have bought some good books on it but haven't gone anywhere with it. I have some notes but not enough work has been done.

Third is a Thirty Years War campaign. i have bought some miniatures a while back but painted nothing. This one is likely a back burner project until the enthusiasm builds again.

Fourth is one of three ACW projects. I have a pennisular campaign laid out, some battles around Atlanta and lastly Jackson's Shenandoah campaign. This project should be close to ready. I need to finalize some scenarios.

Chain of Command

There are two projects here. First is the Third Battle of Kharkov. I really want to do this but have dragged my feet in getting this off the ground. The second is the battle of Singling in 1944. I really am interested in this little battle. It seems like a good opportunity for Chain of Command. It could be done on a large table with Big Chain of Command or on separate tables with separate American platoons pushing up on the village. I have made good progress on this and want to get it on the table top soon.

What a Cowboy

I have a beta of a campaign for WAC about the Second Battle of Adobe Walls. I lack Indians to pull this off myself and have not found any reasonable prices 15mm mounted Indians on eBay yet. I purchased a couple of Indian STLs but want to pick up the really nice set from 3D Breed.

Wargame Vault

I finally hit Electrum Status on my East Front Bundle. Thank you all who purchased. I am very happy to have hit that goal. Here is where my books currently rank. Thanks again.
BookCurrent SalesStatus
East Front Bundle260
Action at Ustilug89
In the Name of Roma58
The Campaign for Kharkov155
Second Kharkov Campaign90
To Covet Glory Bundle2
To Covet Glory167
War of Jenkin's Ear30
The Coming Thunder167
The Falcon and the Gladiator52

Wednesday, November 1, 2023

Wargame Vault Deal of the Day

Well I have received notice that my East Front Bundle will be the deal of the day on Nov 1st, 2023. I just need 2 more sales for it to hit the Electrum rating. Back when I set the bundle up, I did it incorrectly and the ratings do not reflect down on the individual products within it. Thus the individual books should have a much higher number of sales. But if you can pass the word to your friends, it would be much appreciated.

Work on the To Covet Glory scenarios has stalled out. I have two books I am reading to complete out the Convoy scenario that I am working on. One is an analysis of the sunken merchantmen near Yorktown. And another master's thesis on the merchant shipping coming in and out of Yorktown in the 1700s. Both are interesting and offer some interesting details. I am still trying to work out how to make it a reasonable scenario in terms of ship numbers. I think it will end up being a large scenario reguardless.

Friday, October 27, 2023

AWI Naval Wargaming

One of the things that I want to model on the tabletop is a convoy raid. The Royal Navy was constantly escorting convoys between England and the United States throughout the American Revolution. Between the US Navy, American, Spanish, French Privateers and later the French and Spanish Navies, there were countless vessels on the ocean looking to raid these convoys. These convoys could contain hundreds of civilian vessels, most of which are unarmed. The escorts were few in number and had to protect the entire fleet. As such, hit and run raids could pull away ships from the convoy before the escorts could react.

The complexity here is that most gamers have large numbers of warships in their collections but fewer numbers of merchantmen. The scale I choose for small ships restricts this further. Henry Turner has three different East Indiamen among his 1/700 to 1/1200 offerings. I might switch scales for this scenario.

I am struggling to figure out how the scenario should work out.

Thursday, October 5, 2023

Revisiting The Cold War

I broke out the figures that I had and did a little cleaning up. I still have a tiny bit of work to do to round out this force. The one item that i want the most is Israeli M203 gunners. I think I can make it work with a 3dBreed Vietname M203 gunner. I would like 4 of them and 3dBreed sells them in a 4 pack. Amazingly, I found a business card with the notes on how I painted them. I have some additional Galil armed infantry with a few extras that are painted as well.

The next thing I need is some .30 cal MGs to add to the last M113. they just have to be glued and painted. I also wish to 3d Print a Merkava II and another Magach 6. I also have the Peter Pig model of Nagma Shot. It is only undercoated and needs to be painted. Lastly, I have three jeeps. I have one mounted with a machine gun but it needs to be painted. I would like to buy the Peter Pig recoiless rifle pack as it mentions that it can be vehicle mounted. This should give me plenty of support troops and enough to get in a game of What a Tanker with them as well.

My Syrians are not as far along as I thought. I have a full Motor Rifle platoon minus the designated marksmen with a Dragunov. I am not finding any miniatures for them at the moment. Definitely a nice to have rather that a must have. I have a QRF Sagger team that is undercoated. It is lacking a crew member but I will just add a kneeling infantryman with it. The bases are not yet painted but that should be simple enough. I do need to paint up an additional RPG-7 gunner.

My European troops are looking a fair bit better. I have plenty of Soviets to fill out a BMP mounted platoon. I have a box of BMPs from Team Yankee that need to be assembled. Not sure I even remember buying these. But the thought is to assemble three as BMP-2s and two as BMP-1s (to give to the Syrians). I have three painted and ready BMP-1s that are metal. Not really sure of the make at this point. Old Glory maybe? I also have a painted T-72 and a painted T-64 for my Soviet force. I also have a box of T-72s from Team Yankee. This is where my painted T-72 came from. The plan is to paint at least two of these for the Syrians above and the rest for the Soviets. I have an additional 3 unpainted T64s in metal as well. Possibly QRF or Old Glory, just not sure. For supports, I have a painted automatic grenade launcher and a heavy machinegun team. If I want to go with a later era force, I have six painted Soviets with under barrel grenade launchers.

Lastly, my Amerian force is doing pretty good. I have four M113s. Three are complete with MERDEC camo. The fourth has the base coat for the MERDEC that I never finished. I have a complete platoon of mechanized infantry ready to go. I do need to paint some additional riflemen but the force is largely complete. I also have a single painted M1 Abrams. It is not in MERDEC. I regret not painting it in the camo as the M113s came out really well. I do have the remainder of the Team Yankee box to assemble and paint as well.

I do know that I have a Cold War British platoon. I just couldn't find it. Somewhere in my games room are the miniatures that I got for Christmas several years ago. But I plan on getting some STL files for their FV432s and printing some up. I am not sure if I will get any British tanks to go with that force or not. Probably will get something that I will 3D print.

The only other force that I have is a contingent of 8 PLO militia men. With my current interest being actions of the IDF against the Syrians, I am not sure that any additional troops will be added here. Since the PLO wore a wide variety of uniform, adding in a few PLO militia into a Syrian platoon wouldn't really be totally out of place if I wanted to game some of the actions in Beirut.

All in all, these troops are in pretty good shape. I am happy with where they are and it was nice to work on miniatures again. It has been a while.

Just a reminder, since it is October, I am running my Annual Birthday sale. PLease stop by https://payhip.com/ChrisStoesen and use coupon code Birthday2023 to get 50% off anything in the store.

Monday, October 2, 2023

A Great Weekend

I managed to catch up with Mark at Gigabytes and get in a few minutes of an excellent game of Sharp Practice. We just began to maneuver some troops around when I had to leave. It was still good to get caught up with him. He presented me with a box of books. These belonged to Jim who is having some health problems. There are some fantastic sources for the 1982 Operation Peace for Galilee. I have been meaning to dust off these figures for a while and this may lead to me doing just that.

I really want to do some more scenarios for the Rock the Casbah supplement. I am not sure why this is buried in the IABSM section of the Lardies web site instead of in Troops, Weapons and Tactics. I would like to see if I can tune them more towards Chain of Command and What a Tanker. I don't have many tanks for the period but I do have a number of BMPs and M113s. I plan on printing some 3d models for the Magach 6, Merkava II and the T-72 for the period. I do have a Magach 6 that I made from a M60 QRF model that I made my own ERA armor for. It looks OK, but the 3d print should be better. For Syrian tanks I have two. Both are T-55s and one is the Peter Pig destroyed model that I received as a Christmas present several years ago from Francis. It is better painted than the non-destroyed one.

I have completed a couple more scenarios for To Covet Glory. I am working my way through a great article about a British Privateer during the American Revolution. While there are several good sources for Rebel privateers, this is the first I have found in detail on British privateers. i would love to find something on Spanish and French privateers during the same period. The To Covet Glory supplement is currently around 32 pages of scenarios. I hope to have a beta release of it by the end of the month. The problem is finding interesting scenarios not involving unarmed merchant men. I have some ideas about convoy raids that could be interesting but will have to see.

Lastly, since it is October, I am running my Annual Birthday sale. PLease stop by https://payhip.com/ChrisStoesen and use coupon code Birthday2023 to get 50% off anything in the store.

Tuesday, September 5, 2023

Brian English

I just learned of the passing of Brian English over the weekend. Wargaming has given me a good number of friends. Brian was a good one. While we never were able to get together to game as much as we wanted, we stayed in touch and talked often. I am very sad to learn of his passing and am praying for his family.

Friday, June 23, 2023

Father's Day wrap up

This year I had a most excellent Father's Day. my wife and son went above and beyond. First, they bought a new 22" Blackstone. I plan on taking that camping with me next week if I can get it set up correctly. Second, my wife bought me the Vallejo Painting War: Wild West book. The book is fantastic. Not just cowboys, but animals, barrels, and even basing. They nearly make it paint by numbers easy which I need. All colors are listed with the Vallejo item numbers listed. I highly recommend this to anyone who is partially color blind like I am.