Basing Figures - Mexican American War II

Normally I either base a unit as it is done, or base the whole project in one go. However I have finished painting what I have on hand and decided to base it up even though I will be painting more figures for the Mexican American War II project.

Phase 1 - Rocks

All figures have been glued to the tan primed 25mm bases (1.5mm thick).

So out came my three containers of rock, glue brush, water, Elmers glue and I then set down to "rock" 50 figures.

My impromptu work station.

I had cut out a "special" base for the artillery piece. At first I was going to leave the cannon un-based, but decided to raise it to the same level as the crew. Initially it was just going to be on a 60mm round base but thought it might look a little better if I notched out a few spaces for the crew to tighten up on the gun.

A little careful exacto work, sanding and walla! 

In all it took around an hour of to get all figures rocked, not too bad considering a few phone calls interrupted my "zone". It is actually get pretty boring work; dip brush into glue, spread all over base, sprinkle a couple of "large" rocks on it, cover 80% of the base with the "thick" rocks, then dip the whole base into the "dirt" to cover everything else and finally blow off excess dust, and repeat.

Dirt and rocks for all!

This is going to be my main Deployment point ... I'll print up an Imperial Mexican flag next. I also have a couple of ideas for additional deployment points (secondary and movable), but wanted to have this one done right away.

There still is some work that needs to be done on my unit of skirmishers. I am going to add tufts to the kepi and paint them green. As most of the army is an ad hoc 'what if' 1864 force, I am taking a few liberties with the uniforms, so pom poms for the Cazadores it is!

The pants are much lighter in person!

Phase 2 - Grass

Next up, desert grass that will work on green table cloth! I wanted to avoid the "green" look I normally go for as these figures are supposed to be running around Southwest america. But as the vast majority of games are going to be played on the green cloth they needed to blend in with the cloth as well. So I mixed a special blend of burnt grass and earth flocking, with a touch of green in it.

Materials I used to blend a "desert" grass

Typically I cover three quarters of the base with glue and dip the base into a green flock mix. This time I wanted a more "spotty" look, so I just dabbed the glue on around the base before dipping it into the flock. Some bases had more, some had less grass.

The Deployment Point, sans a flag

As it is just two steps to apply the grass mixtures, this step went a lot faster, around 20 minutes to do the whole lot of the bases. I then let glue dry a little longer before I add some tufts to few bases. I usually don't do too many on rank and file bases though.

The Corporal is on a 30mm base, so gets a tuft!

After the glue has dried completely, I spray all the figures with flat varnish. Not only does this protect the paint job, it also dulls the dip gloss and helps glue down the flocking.

Same figure as seen above in the Rocks section.

The artillery base turned out pretty good ... fortunately I only had to do one of them :)

Top down view of the completed gun section.

The bulk of my basic force is now done, though it is missing the French Foreign Legion section. I'll also paint up some extra groups and a cavalry group to use as supplemental units for different scenarios.

Former Republican troops (left) and Imperial Army (right)

I'll order up the Legion and Cavalry figures later this week from Gringo 40s.

Mexican American War II

I am sure you'll all be surprised but a small group of us have started up a new project. And as I am want to do, I got them doing something different than 'normal' gaming project :)

I recently read the Sharps Practice 2 rules and thought it seemed like a fun rule set to play. And the figure count is relatively low, so would make for a neat mini project (of course it has grown slightly than I originally anticipated!). I knew I did not want to do any Napoleonic figures (have plenty of opportunities to paint up troops for Black Powder), and was thinking that as I have never done an AWI project, SP2 supports AWI, plenty of figures to choose from, that it would be a perfect period for the project... But when I broached the idea to several other participants, I found a lack of interest in it, in fact they thought an ACW project would be better.

I have plenty of 15mm ACW and so was not super keen on the idea. I threw out the idea of doing something different, a quasi-historical period … how about the 2nd American Mexican set during the during the American Civil War! We could have Confederates, Union, Mexican, French, Austrian, Belgian and even British troops … they were sold on the idea. So I read up on what was happening during that time frame and got to work on writing up some background material.

PAX MEXICANA, 1864

 My basic premise is that to unify the country after the French leave Mexico (mostly), Maximilian promises to restore Texas to the Mexican Empire! So in 1864 Mexico invades Texas, along with British support (intent of taking over the Rio Grande Cotton Trade route). Only the French Foreign Legion remained behind to help the Mexican side, while Union troops have been reluctantly accepted by Texas to help stem the invasion.

There will be four main forces to choose from, Texas Home Guard, who distrust the union to much to operate with them, though have irregular units such as Texas Rangers. And Confederate Veterans, who are reluctantly willingly to work with Union troops on the American side.

Maximilian forces are an Mexican Imperial Army, made up of both former republican and imperial forces, with a few Legionnaire units. Or a British Intervention Force supported by some Mexican irregular forces (mostly cavalry).

Each player is going to paint up a core force which we will track through the campaign, and units can gain and lose experience, special abilities as the campaign progresses. Each player will also need to paint up several support units that can be used from game to game but won’t be tracked. Typically this will be artillery, cavalry and limited special units (such as Sharpshooters).

Here is my initial rough draft of the rules, compiled from several sources and will most definitely change. Mexican American War II - Rough Draft

Captain Delgado's Company, 8th Battalion
I have chosen (well a process of elimination :) to paint up a Mexican Army. While both Gringo 40 and Foundry do figures for the Maximilian Adventure, I decided to mostly use Perry's ACW figures for the infantry. I’ll get some Gringo40's cavalry and legionnaires to finish off the core units. I might also get some Foundry figures to use as leaders, support units, as well as for making a few Deployment points.

1st Platoon
Waiting on basing and a couple of touch ups, but my first formation is mostly done (two 8 figure groups and a leader).

The flesh looks "whiter" in this pic, but do need to darken it on later figures.

2nd Platoon
My second formation is blocked out, dip and touch ups left to do (again 2 groups and a leader).

I was going to paint them up in the late Imperial Uniform (red shirt, green pants) but one was not keen on the color combo and two, the figures turned out not to be a close a fit as I thought. So they are using mostly uniforms received from the Union before their treachery!

Supporting Units
Next up is a artillery piece (leaning towards painting them up in a white uniform) and a 6 figure skirmish group (which I am leaning towards a variant of the Cazadore uniform (Blue/Grey with green piping).

Going to have to add one more figure as artillery unit has 5 men to it. My initial thought is to use an extra standard bearer from the "white uniform" unit above and craft a cleaning rod for him.

I am thinking about adding a pompom to the top of the kepi, and if i am really feeling crafty, I will bulk up the kepi first to look like a shako!

This should (along with the cav and french) get me close to my starting force, plus a support unit. Though I might need to get some more "regular" infantry to add to my basic force.

Already have some ideas for deployment points. The main deployment point will be on a 60mm round base with one (or two) flag bearers and a table with an officer. A secondary point, might be some crates with an NCO. For a movable deployment points I am leaning towards just a 40mm round base with a single "sneaky" skirmisher figure advancing.

Will have more to come and will post some pics of the other chaps armies as they get units done.

6mm Micro Armor Trees

As I have been in a painting slump these last couple of months, I decided i'd finish up a few small projects. I was able to touch up some figures for my Frostgrave warband, rebase of all my Napoleonic sailing ships to use with Fighting Sail from Osprey and work on some trees from GHQ for my modern micro armor.

I have had two packs of GHQ tree kits for several years, but never got around to making them. However, we have been gaming some modern micro armor lately, and this motivated my to figure how to build them before our next game. So after reading the instructions and watching a copy of the 1980's terrain maker video on YouTube, I gathered up everything and made a few test trees. Satisfied with the results I cut out enough for 30 deciduous trees (a bunch of pine tree will be later). Note: I may go back and for future trees, use a putty/paint solution on the tree trunks.

The tools used plus a paint brush for the tree trunks. As you'll see later,
 the pink foam was used to hold the trees until I hot blued them to pennies.

This is what comes out of the bag.

Using snips to cut up the "tree".

I then bent the piece at a 90 degree. Placed one side on a
 paint brush and wrap the other half around the brush

Once you slide out the brush it looks like this.

Now for the trunk ... a candle came in handy for this step.

Did not set one of them on fire!

Stuck them into the foam, then painted the trunks.

Not shown, but I covered the tree in glue and dip it into my bin of flocking.

I bent the truck twice at 90 degrees to give it "base" then hot glued them to pennies.

I did up a few as "Cyprus" tree

BMP company on overwatch at the edge of a woodline

T-72 moving down a grass road

Next up is a batch of pine trees, though once done I will just update this post with a few pics. I am saving a few trees to put on building sectors. Think I am going to try and build my own buildings as I want them a little smaller than the vehicles so as to have more on a town block.

I have also ordered a unit of Russian Infantry in greatcoats ... I believe they should be easy to paint up and might get me back into painting and gaming with my Napoleonic figures again!

Boromite Force - Beyond the Gates of Antares

I had play tested the BGoA rules and since its release have had several more games, all those games have seen proxy figures used for the BGoA factions. As I do really like the rules (highly recommend them), I thought it best to paint up a store army. Based on the lack of interest and low sales of the figures, it seemed apparent that I should either paint up a Boromite or Freeborn force. Though as I already had two Boromite units done (from the playtest days), it was easy for me to choose the Boromite faction as the store army.

To the already painted units, I added another four to bring the force up to around 600pts. I was going to do a matriarch as well, but it is essentially another command squad though weak on firepower so skipped it (though see below for major gripe with Warlord games and BGoA).

I ended up with:
1x Overseer Command Squad with extra troops and plasma grenades
2x Gang Fighter Squad with plasma grenades
1x Work Gang with Mass Compactors and Implosion Grenades
1x Support Team with X-Launcher
1x Lava Mite Brood

Boromite Combat Force

 

For the command squad I purchased a couple of extra troops to bump the squad to five figures. I wanted the leader to stand out from the rest of the troopers and succeeded (to much in retrospect). I should have used his paint scheme on the lava might handler and just gone with a lighter green (yellowish) "skin" for the overall leader. Someone also pointed out that I have the superhero The Thing leading the Boromites :)
 

Reinforced Overseer Squad

The core of the army is a couple of units of Gang Fighters. It is hard to see in these photos but the exposed "skin" is less "green" than the green "rocky" skin. I used Necrotic Flesh spray from The Army Painter then "painted" the stone skin with Vallejo air color Green Zinc.
 

#1 Gang Fighter Squad



#2 Gang Fighter Squad

Nothing beats the close range fire like the Mass Compactors and so added one unit with them. For the "tech" bitz on the models, I went with metallic silver for most weapons and gold/brass for the trim and non-weapon bits. Hard to see but the Reflex Armor nodules are gold metallic.
 

Work Gang w/ Mass Compactors

You can just see a little bit of it on the X-Launcher support team figures, but to add "color" to the figures I went with a red accent. Any clothes were painted red and most of the pouches were painted in a red leather tone. I am contemplating painting the few "mortar" rounds/globes in a highly contrasting color, such as bright yellow.
 

X-Launcher Support Team

For my close combat "specialist" unit, I of course went with the Lavamites. Their three attacks at -2 to saves per model is going to be brutal when they close with he enemy. To go with their namesake, I pretty much painted them as lava! The handler was painted in my basic Boromite scheme, though as noted above I would redo him in the oranges red scheme to reflect how much time he spends around the mites.
 

Small Lavamite Brood 

Of course all models were completely dipped to darken up and "black line" the figures. I will most likely include one or two support units with Mag Light Support weapons (aka Machineguns) but will see what other release they do for the Boromites.

BGoA Gripe
Besides the price gouging of the Beyond the Gates of Antares figures, the most frustrating issue I have (as well as customers demonstrated by lost sales) with the BGoA miniature line, is the incomplete units included in a blister or box. The ignorance on what should come in a blister or boxed set is kind of staggering, in that it applies to almost every single blister or  boxed set they have produced so far.

Basically they never give you enough figures, weapons or drones to field a full unit. As an example, the new $32.00 Boromite Matriarch boxed set comes with the Matriarch, one guildless and two gun drones (about twice the size of the Spotter drone shown above). The unit could be upgraded with a spotter drone, two shield drones and two extra gun drones, but alas they don't includes those. I have had a customer put back the boxed set from the counter when he realized you only got two gun drones.

I could list the problems with each blister or boxed set, but alas it applies to at least 90% of their range. What Warlord Games seems to not understand, unlike say a company which does 15mm WW2, is that the majority of gamers want to buy the whole unit outright. The gamer will decide for each game whether to field the unit at reduced or full strength or somewhere in between, but at least he has the option if he was able to purchase the whole unit. It also doesn’t help when say they release the Concord Drop Squads but no Command Drop Squad that you must field in order to include Drop Squads in the army!

The larger impact of this practice is that the whole game of BGoA has the feeling of being incomplete, disorganized and poorly thought out. From a commercial stand point it is making it very difficult to sell the game and figures (as well as the prices) at the store, even though the rules are excellent.

Melee over Gotha, Germany 1944

Ken ran another CY6 game last weekend ... While I started the game, I ended up missing about half the game helping customers (otherwise known as working!).

We have been getting more and more games of CY6! in and now are pretty comfortable with the rules. Though I do seem to still forget a lot of the little details, thankfully Chris and Ken are there to keep me honest :) The only issue I am not keen on is the bomber's shooting ... very time consuming and wish we had a simpler way of adjudicating it.

The sixteen B-17 bombers had to move from one side of the table to the other side. Each flank was protected by a flight of P-51. The Germans had a mix of BF-109 and FW-190's, eight of them to shoot down as many B-17's as they could.

I controlled the right flank P-51's, while Seann controlled the left flank (or all of them while I was away). Ken had FW-190's while Chris flew BF-109's.

My flight swoop forward, then banked to the left at a pair of BF-109's ... and passed right by them without firing! I then poured on the power and raced toward some FW-190's. I got a couple of burst off and was in the process of turning back towards some BF-109's, when I had to step away from the game.

 

I came back in time to see most of the B-17's fly of the board edge, though three had been shot down. Combined with the loss of a couple of German fighters, enough bombers got off the table for an American victory.

 

 Ken is already working on the next game ... I will try and take better pictures next time!

 

Ghar Battleforce

Had a few left over models from the release of the Beyond the Gates of Antares last year. In addition, I traded the set of Concord figures which came with the set for more Ghar battlesuits. They had been sitting in a box since then, so thought I would break out the airbrush to quickly paint up the figures.

I was not keen on the light grey or white theme shown throughout the book ... it seems just to "Hi Tech" for the Ghar, so went with a green and brown theme.


Meet my "Little Friends" - Ghar Outcast Commander with twelve battlesuits

Standard Ghar Battlesuit - main weapon is the Scourer Cannon

Ghar Assault Suit - the Gouger gun pins the enemy. Then they move in and finish them with the Plasma Claw.

The limited edition BtGA had a special character figure, Fartok leader of the Outcast Revolt. Not sure if I'll get around to painting up any more Ghar, but if I do, I have a pretty cool figure for a command squad. It seems that if a Ghar screws up (and survives), it has its suit taken away and is referred to as an Outcast aka penal battalion. It would appear that not all Ghar appreciate the one strike rule :)

Fartok without its Battlesuit -

 I thought the red "eyes" really help make the figure stand out. Initially was going to go with "glowing" yellow, but thought a sharp contrast would work better.

I have already done up a couple of squads for the Algoryn and Boromite factions; now the Ghar. I should probably just stick to one faction and complete it!

Honours of War in 15mm

Even though I had already participated in three games this week, I met up with several friends at the store on a Sunday (my one day off) to get another wargame in for the week. James had recently purchased the Honours of War rules by Osprey Publishing and was motivated to dig out his 15mm SYW figures for a game (he even rebased some of his miniatures!).

I had already dabbled with rules and they had been gamed at the store several times. I was not too impressed with them so far, it seemed to me that all you did was move up and then pull units off the table at the slightest wisp of combat. In addition the units seemed very bland, everything has the same stats, leaders were just tokens to measure command to/from et... But I always have a good time gaming with my friends, so made the best of it.

James went with a semi large game to begin with; each side had about 36 units (the Austro-Russian force had 34, but four large units). James and I played on the Austro-Russian side, while Chris and Steve commanded the Prussians. Most units were rated as per the book, though we did play the Russian artillery as Superior.

I commanded three brigades of infantry and one brigade of cavalry, all Russian. James, who was to my right, commanded the Russian grenadier brigade, two cavalry brigades and the Austrian infantry. The lone Austrian grenadier battalion was an independent unit.

Chris commanded two brigades of infantry and two brigades of cavalry. While to his left, Steve commanded two infantry brigades, a cavalry brigade and a large grenadier brigade.

After we had set up our forces, we then rolled for our commanders abilities ... which really created some interesting dilemma's for both sides. Chris for example had rolled two dithering commanders, while Steve on the other hand had two dashing commanders. James and I each had a dithering commander.

We spent about four turns maneuvering our forces against each other ... some of the delay was due in part to our poor maneuvering die rolls (the dithering commanders were especially living up to their lack of ability!)

Eventually we had some cavalry clashes. I learned that charging fresh infantry to the front was not really going to work out well for the cavalry ... even with Chris bad die rolling! But the battle raged on and my Russian infantry pressed into the Prussians, with limited success. The Prussian hammered back and almost broke my command.

Steve and James squared off and proceed to engage in long range fire while the cavalry on the flank battled for supremacy. It looked like the Russian cavalry was going to sweep away the remaining Prussian hussars, after they had beat up the Austrian Cuirassiers! Then there was a lull in the cavalry fight, at which time both sides Grenadiers came to grips and proceeded to blow each other away!

I was able to reform my line on the left flank, largely because the dithering brigade finally had moved up and formed battle line. Our center was dangerously absent of troops ... fortunately the Prussian's had nothing organized and ready to move into the gap.



We called the game shortly thereafter ... a draw favoring the Prussians. They had beat up the center, but did not have any troops to exploit it. I held the left with enough force and James still had the large Austrian infantry force, with much of it untouched on the right and soon would have a slight advantage in cavalry.

 

Wow ... I unexpectedly had a great time playing HoW! We played for over five hours and only stopped when we realized it was 6pm. I am not sure if it was the size of the game, the scale of the figures or even that I was the rules adjudicator, but this was far and above the best game of HoW I had participated in or seen played.

 

That said there were still a few things that detracted from the game. Several parts of the rules are unclear or vaguely written. I know that after I read the rules a couple more times I'll be able to piece together clarity for some of the questions. I just get tired of having to make an educated guess on what an author was poorly trying to get across (Edit: Most have been cleared up after a couple of thorough readings of the rules) ...

 

The main drawback to the game is that it is in centimeters. Besides being a pain to convert (none of the QRS have been converted), I found it difficult to get a feel for the ranges and movement of troops (I know I was not the only one!). Also as we we're using 15mm figures (all ranges in the book should have been halved), we ended up incorrectly using ranges in different sections of the rules. This will be alleviated once I do up a QRS in Imperial measurements and a few more play through of the rules.

 

Neither issue will stop us from gaming again and in fact James is already working on another game with even more troops!