New Prince August Molds

  For Saint Patrick's Day, Prince August had a 24 hour sale on molds; 1/2 price! While I haven't had much interest in their molds  lately, there where two I wanted. One was their fantasy mold of Cavemen ( for No Brain Wargames) and the Brave Toy Soldier mold. The uniform of the brave toy soldier looks like it's from the period of the 1830's. The soldiers could be painted as different volunteer militias from that period. Besides those molds, I did buy 2 of their new SYW molds, as I have had interest after seeing other blogs using them.

    I received the molds last week. I decided to do some quick casting of the cavemen and brave toy soldier. The brave toy soldier mold casts well; the caveman mold will need a couple of vents cut into it. I tried pouring one of the SYW molds, but it didn't come out well. I didn't want these new molds to distract me from my Napoleonic project, so the casting have been put aside for now.

The brave toy soldier is a nice figure. It would be nice if Prince August came out with a couple of more toy soldier figures. The figure does come with both legs; you must amputate the leg yourself!

The casting. I did cast a couple of PA older 18th century figures. The large rabbit needed some repair for Easter.

Close up of the casting.

Working Out New Minifigs Regiments

   Working on my 1st generation Minifigs  Napoleonics has got me excited again for wargaming again, a feeling that has been in short supply for many months.  In 2016 I had started basing some of the Minifigs into 18 man regiments, with 5 infantry stands and 1 command stand. If  I have 3- 18 man regiments, I could convert them into Battle Cry regiments by removing 2 stands. I could then form 5- 4 stand regiments  by using 2 extra command stands.

    I decided to start painting the extra command stands, along with another regiment of British infantry. Besides the command stands, a few of the command stands I now have are short musicians, so I found musician figures to paint up to complete those stands.

    While walking the dog, I was working out my regiments. One problem was the fact that there is 1 Highland regiment. I didn't really want to overdo special units such as Highlanders. Then I thought of coming up with a "cadre" of a second Highland regiment. This cadre will consist of a command stand and 1 infantry stand. I've also started marking the bottom of the stands. Of course, right now I'm only numbering them with numbers, not after actual regiments.

    However, this latest flight of fancy has distracted me from my wagon project. I have decided to finish the command stands and musicians, put aside the infantry for now, and turn my attention to cavalry and artillery.

The newest regiments being formed.

I think the original Minifigs strips were a great idea. It is easy to paint the figures on the strip. What's more, the number tag at the end of the bases is a great handle. Too bad they didn't continue using this method; however, I'm sure they realized they could save a lot of metal by doing individual figures.

Closeup of the British regiment being formed.

4 "New" 1st Generation 15mm Minifigs Regiments

     With the completion of the cigar box wargame, I started work on my wagons. I began with four 1st generation Minifigs RHA cassions. As the size of the wagon bases are over 1" in length, I realized they won't work well on the small squares I use. 2" squares will work, but to have individually based figures might not look right. I brought out several different lines of figures to think the problem through. Among the figures was a large lot of 1st generation Minifigs Napoleonics that I got in a purchase of Peter Laing Victorian Parade figures. It is worth noting that I have posted before of making 18 figures regiments for my Napoleonic games. It turns out whoever had these figures must have planned the same, as there were enough figures to make 18 man regiments.  As the figures were already painted, all there was for me to do were to base them. When finished I have 1 regular British regiment, 1 Highland regiment, 1 British light Infantry  regiment, and 1 French Regiment. The French plumes are even painted different colors; obviously the original owner planned to base 3 figures to a base.

The original lot of mixed Peter Laing Victorian parade figures and 1st generation Minifigs Napoleonics.

The Minifigs before sorting and basing.

The regiments based. the 4 cassions can be seen in the background.

Cigar Box Wargame Played

        The cigar box top has been gridded off. The grid comes out 7x8. By using 2mm units of 4 infantry, 3 cavalry, or 2 artillery, the playing pieces fit on the board nicely. I played a quick game to see if this system will work. I was happy with the result. This setup should work well when I want a quick game.

The two armies deployed.

Instead of a normal pencil to mark the squares, I used a brown colored pencil to make the grid less conspicuous.

While the top is only painted now, I think a coat of flat lacquer might protect the top.

Cigar Box Wargame

     This week I had no time to do any work on gaming. I was offered some overtime; I had to work every night. With my wife's union talking about going on strike, we might need that extra money.
However, the time working gave me plenty of time to think about different ideas on my future wargame plans.

     Today I was working out some ideas on basing Peter Laing wagons. Before starting to base the wagons, I decided I should try to clear my work/wargame table. I also wanted to start consolidating different collections. On the table I found several small boxes of 2mm figures.  I noticed a nice cigar box I had picked up at the tobacco shop a few weeks ago and realized this was ideal for the collection. After putting the figures in the box, I went back upstairs, as Donna and I had errants to run. After I few minutes, it dawned on me that the cigar box top might be the right size for a small gridded battlefield. I went down and measured the top. at 7.5 X 8 inches. It's the right size for a gridded 8x8 board (although one row will be short). What's more, when the top is flipped over, it sits snug on top of the box. If I throw in some spare dice, it's a nice, portable game.

The Cigar Box.

The 2mm armies and terrain in the box.

The box top flipped over and seated into the box.

The top painted. Next I will draw on the grids and the Cigar Box Wargame will be set.

Exciting New Peter Laing Find

      I recently purchased some Peter Laing and Heritage figures. I almost passed on this lot; it would have been a big mistake!  One part of this lot might be a game changer for me.

     I am adding a new feature to my blog: BORE WAR-NING. I have recently been trying to keep my rambling to a minimum, letting the photographs do most of the talking. I have decided to do a small introduction to the photographs, and if I want to write more about the subject, issue a BORE WAR-NING.  That way one can choose to skip the more boring parts and get to the meat of the posting.

   BORE WAR-NING! I started thinking of doing an ECW period narrative campaign, using one of the counties of Massachusetts as the battleground.  I chose Essex County, as it doesn't have any long straight borders with neighboring counties.  After printing a map of Essex County, I decided to check Ebay for 15mm ECW figures. While I have been searching online for more SAE figures, generally I haven't done any serious searching for Peter Laing figures. As I was thinking that this campaign could be based on the King Phillip War, my main goal was to find 1st generation ECW Minifigs, as I gave away most of those figures I had. One lot had a good selection of Peter Laing ECW and early 18th century figures, along with some PL wagons and Heritage Napoleonic British infantry.  I actually passed by quickly, as they weren't what I was looking for. After finishing my search, I went back to the Peter Laing sale. There was no mention of Peter Laing in the ad; obviously the seller, being American, had no knowledge of Peter Laing. The lot itself had a nice assortment of figures, and had a reasonable "Buy it now"price. What's more, there was something I hadn't seen before. Among the wagons there was a boat and a wagon to carry the boat on. A pontoon boat and wagon!  I have always wanted to work bridging into my wargames, after, as a kid, having some Bandai 1/48 model German Sappers and a wooden bridge that I would have them build across trenches I dug in my back yard.
 
       I received the lot yesterday. Besides the pontoon bridge, I found a Marlburian Lowlander musketeer firing (F1010) and a mounted trumpeter that I didn't have before, so in all it was a great purchase.

   This latest purchase has me rethinking my wargaming. I have a large collection of Peter Laing wagons, which never get used. My goal is to work the wagons into my games, maybe using the Little War rules on supplying units. I have started writing down some new ideas for an expanded wargame, one that might take a couple of days to play out.

The Peter Laing ECW figures that includes a mounted trumpeter and Lowlander musketeer.

Peter Laing Marborough figures (mainly grenadiers) and Heritage British Napoleonic infantry.

The main reason of the purchase: the pontoon wagon! I put it together for the photograph. Also two nice wagons.

The pontoon boat. The bottom of the pontoon is rounded, so it might be hard to use as is for  wargames. If I use this in games, I might make balsa pontoon boats for games.

Cavalry for 30mm Wargames

      A while back I bought some gilt painted cavalry figures to use with 40mm wargames. After getting them,  I realized that they were closer to 30mm to 35mm. Still, as my 40mm armies were to be "toy soldier" armies, the difference in scale wasn't going to bother me.

      However, I have been working towards using 30mm Swedish African Engineer figures for my next project. I think the cavalry figures will work fine with the SAE miniatures. They are a little larger than SAE cavalry figures, but not much that they would distract from the game. Looking at the classic wargame  book, "CHARGE!" by Peter Young and J.P.Lawford, it seems they ran into the same scale problem with their cavalry. So if it's good enough for these two wargaming pioneers, it's good enough for me.

The lot of gilt cavalry. I did a posting on them when I first received them.

The cavalry next to a 40mm figure.

The gilt cavalry next to SAE figures. While the SAE is smaller than the gilt, it's a difference I can live with.

I have been trying to figure out the make of the gilt cavalry. It seems the different British manufacturers all painted some of their figures gilt, so that didn't help me in my search.

Another Mold to Distract Me

      As I made my last mold, I noticed that the rubber was getting low, but it also seemed to be solidifying. I'm not sure if it was because it had been in the cold basement, or was reaching the end of its shelf life.  I decided to use the last of it quickly. I brought the rubber upstairs to warm up.  My choices for a figure was either a SAE British Colonial infantryman advancing, or a SAE British infantryman charging.  I have long disliked figures charging, with one leg kicked back high in the air; perhaps because of my disappointment with Esci's Zulu War infantryman with the exaggerated charging position.  However, the picture that inspired these molds shows infantrymen in this charging position. And so the mold was made of the charging infantryman.

The original inspiration for the last two molds.

The completed figures. There is a groove down the front of the helmet that isn't visible in the picture. If these figures ever get any serious use, those grooves would need to be filled.

The figures in roughly the same position as the Little Wars drawing.

Perhaps now that these molds are completed and figures poured, I can go back to the project I was working on before my "midnight madness" distracted me.

No Brain Wargame Rules

    No Brain Wargames is a simple set of rules for fighting unorganized tribal battles. There is nothing original in the game and probably many who read this has played a similar game. The rules I give are how I usually play it, although I will use hexes and different figures and add optional rules.

The playing board is a chessboard.
Both armies have 24 men; 16 melee figures and 8 projectile figures. One figure is the chief figure. This figure should be clearly marked.

Playing the game.

   Both sides deploy their figures randomly on their baseline. There can only be four figures maximum         per square. (I usually scramble the figures and draw one at a time without looking, thereby having different combinations of Melee/ projectile groups)

   The first player moves up to 4 squares of figures, then resolves battle.  Second player takes his turn.

   Movement:  Both sides roll a dice to decide initiative for that turn. During a turn each side can only move four squares worth of figures. Figures can only move one square, either directly forward, sideways, or backwards; no diagonal moves.

Combat: Melee figures must be adjacent to the enemy to fight; projectile figures have a range of two. To shoot at a unit diagonal to it, the projectile figure counts the adjacent square as one, then the diagonal square as the second.  Each figure rolls one dice. If a 5 is rolled, one enemy figure must retreat two spaces. If a 6 is rolled, one figure is killed. (I have started counting a 4 or 5 roll as a retreat roll the last couple of games, to make a more fluid game.)

Battle: Although only four square of figures can be moved, ANY figure that can battle may do so. If an adjacent square is opened up through combat, the attacking side may advance a unit into the vacated square.   During the movement phase the moving side may move parts of the unit to other squares, but that movement counts as one square worth of movement. All combat should go in order of either left to right, or right to left.

Retreats and Kills:  If a figure is forced to retreat, it moves directly back towards its baseline. If that square is occupied by four figures, the figure is "Killed". If there is only square left, the figure retreats off the board.  If the enemy gets in the square behind an enemy unit, and the enemy have figures that have to retreat, the retreating figure or figures are killed.  If the leader figure is forced to retreat off the board or is killed, that army losses the battle. Once one side has lost 16 warriors, that side has lost the battle.

That's basically is the game. It is easy enough to make optional rules for each individual game. I have added cavalry, allowing for the figures to move 2 squares, but still only roll one dice, the idea being that early cavalry rode small horses and didn't have stirrups.  It is also easy enough that you could have a larger pool of melee and projectile figures, the idea being that by doing a "blind draw" figures, one side might end up with more projectile figures that the other.

Here are a couple ofphotos from a recent post. Instead of using individual figures, I used bases with multiple figures on each base. I did also add some optional rules, including having several stands of Elite Huscarls which got a bonus when in combat.