The Wargamer's Dilemma - Re-basing

It's something we have all done, it's not as if we haven't got enough of a lead or plastic mountain to spend our time painting instead.  But for whatever reason, be it new rules, a general re-fresh or re-organisation, we find ourselves levering figures off of bases and then putting them on new bases. Then applying our re-basing texture, plants etc of choice and then remembering to put magnetic sheet beneath each base. It's a MONSTER of a job!

I guess I'm writing this mostly in justification.  I'm just about to re-do an army I only re-based about 2 years ago...and I want to remind myself of all the reasons why I'm doing it and set it to paper (so to speak), so I don't continually beat myself up and ask myself 'why?' when I properly start the process.

Well, this fine 15mm Confederate army with their beautiful GMB flags were re-based and re-flagged only about 2 years ago. This replaced all of the card and messy scatter-flocked bases which were horribly warped.  Some of the flags had been made by early dot-printers and picked up at shows in the early 1990's.  The basing must have been done about then as I had picked up Fire & Fury rules and I was obsessed with them for about the next 10 years. Rules which were actually fun and looked amazing (unlike the poor photocopied and horrendously complex rules being produced in the UK at the time). 

Two years ago I decided to re-base them. I used MDF bases cut to the standard 1" x 1" and used the highly expensive railway flora stuck on.  Great I thought....Except it wasn't.

For some reason I couldn't get the motivation to re-base my Union Army afterwards. In fact I couldn't get the motivation to get my Confederates out of their box.  I did do for one great game...once.  But after this in the box they stayed.   I couldn't work out why my playing mojo for them had gone.  It was only recently when re-basing my vintage Minifigs Napoleonics (previous post) a couple of months ago that the reason became clear....I just hated handling the newly based figures.  It was so hard to get them out of the box, but also just to move them on the battlefield without bending bayonets and flags. It was easier to handle them by grasping the rear left and right figure which is never good.  I guess it was less important when the old bases were card as they were lighter (and actually were accidentally cut a little larger than 1" x 1").  With the weight of the new MDF bases with sand/acrylic texture and shrubs, bayonets bent like bananas.

The problem is immediately apparent with these photos.  I just tried to put these stands back in the box with their comrades. I had to stop - bayonets all over the place which were in dire danger of breaking.

I also realised that I really didn't like the Fire and Fury basing for the artillery too.  It looks so unnatural and like a marker than a model.  Very unrealistic crew positions.  I know in the F & F scenarios, units need to be jemmied in to get everything on to the board (at least in my experience) so I was loathe to make the bases bigger.  However, when the aesthetic offends the eye so much that you realise you don't want to get them out, then you know you have to do something.

Work in Progress:  On the plain MDF base is what I have done today. The squares are 1 cm squared.  I shall talk metric now.  The old base was 4 cm x 2.5 cm for a gun but with the gun sticking a further 0.5 cm out further. So let's call it 4.5 x 2.5 cm.

The new base is 5 cm x 4 cm.  It is just 0.5 cm longer and 1.5 cm wider and yet - look at the crew - they can work their gun!  It will look much better when properly base textured and plants and grass applied but the slightly larger base gives a much better aesthetic.

So now we come to the Infantry.  I decided to make bases into single bases containing what would have been 3 bases previously.  I also widened the base and have made it deeper.  This protects most of the bayonets leaving only a fraction to 'over hang' where unavoidable. Handling is much easier without it seeming like one is picking up a tiny hedgehog of protruding bayonets and ramrods.

The difference can be seen clearly here again.  The old bases were 1" x 1" so 3 bases would occupy 3" x 1" or approx 7.5 cm x  2.5cm.  My new base is 9 cm x 3.5 cm.

My new single base has a larger footprint in width but as the bayonets now have basing depth to protect them, the depth makes little difference.  Previously exposed bayonets sticking out would have increased the base depth in reality.

I used the figures from 3 bases for my new single base.  It is rare to require less than 3 bases in Fire and Fury.  I can call this new base a triple base or if stuck for game size which is suffering because I have given greater width to my bases then I will merely call it a 4-base.  I will be very flexible with my naming conventions.  To be honest, I don't intend removing bases when playing F & F, my standard casualty markers will keep track....and I'm sure in real battle when lead is flying and smoke is filling the air it would be impossible to tell whether it was a 900 man battalion or a 700 man battalion facing you across the valley and so I don't intend counting bases to keep track. A label will suffice to show starting strengths.

Another factor which makes my sticking to F & F basing conventions a little superfluous is that I tend to use Black Powder for ACW these days - though I would like the option of playing F & F if I feel like it.  I feel I can now do both with my figures protected and looking much better. 

It should also speed up the game - I dislike moving little single bases when I can move larger ones.  Some might ask why I don't just use movement trays - yes it would simplify things - but I just don't like the figures standing 6mm or so above the terrain as if they were all on a giant surfboard.  It's just an aesthetic thing and we all have our personal tastes.  I've tried movement trays and I am just not fond of them at all.

One potential problem was how to remove the figures that I had previously completed with basing texture of sand and acrylic paint. This stuff sets like concrete.  The Confederates above are standing in water.  After 30 minutes the bases are soft to the modelling blade.  I had feared that I would have to drill them out with my Dremel tool. A gentle scraping and lifting will undo all my previous hard work, but will result in figures being rebased in a far better fashion which also protects them more and makes them more playable to my mind.

Above is work in progress - the first texturing of the Union army.  Below how they look on my new larger MDF bases.

Well, if you have maintained interest so far then I congratulate you! You must have faced similar problems before and were curious to know how I dealt with my dilemma. It is something that has occupied my mind for weeks if not months now.  I think we like these little challenges and dilemmas as a deviation from daily life.  Ultimately, I can now look back on my blog in the coming weeks and say - 'THIS is why I'm putting myself through re-basing well over a thousand figures! Stick with it!'

A long Awaited Return for Napoleon

Well it wasn't exactly the 100 days, probably more likely 30 years to the year!  This was how long it was since I last played a Napoleonic game at home.    I shall now tell a tale of wargaming which might appear familiar to some and odd to others - those who might be more efficient with the time management and painting than I.  My paragraphs will be interspersed with the main feature photos to break up my essay!

In truth I have been involved in one Napoleonic game since 1988 but that was at a wargaming 'centre' about 15 years ago (a cold shed in East Anglia), and was the worst wargaming experience I have ever had with the most argumentative, rudest set of people that I have ever come across in the hobby - something that has made me VERY careful of who I spend my valuable time with since).  I digress...

Many times over the years I have started Napoleonic armies. In the mid 1980's Airfix and Esci troops were the thing and as a teenager I consumed all the books I could borrow from the school library about Waterloo.  At the same time Esci brought out their amazing Waterloo battle set which was incredibly good timing - I still remember seeing the box in Cheltenham Model Shop and being absolutely bowled over by it. I was one happy guy going home with that!

Many conversions followed with trimmed Brown Bess's to make Baker rifles for my modified 95th Rifles, cut down shakos with glue and rolled loo roll to convert Esci Scots Greys into Life Guards - lots of fairly rough and ready conversions but it looked ok(!) as a teenager.

The rules were those which I had devised myself and were very basic but it was fun and many hours were had playing with hundreds of Napoleonic troops on the boards set up over a 'bar football' game which must have creaked under the weight.  The most amazing thing was all of the troops were based on individual pieces of card - so it took flipping AGES to take a turn!  How things have changed as lessons were learned since then.

Well, Ian was my regularly gaming opponent back then and still is now.  On the discovery of the 'Keep Wargaming' shop in Devizes a small collection of 25mm Minifigs began to gather I also had some Prince August moulds (only sold this year) and I managed to build a few units up but didn't get to play with them. 

Alas, I joined the regular army in 1988 and away I went for a few years.  Wargaming didn't happen again for a few years until I got a regular post and had my own room to do my hobbies again.  This time it was mostly 25mm ECW using Forlorn Hope rules.  Regular wargaming didn't happen again until more recent years (probably about the time I started this blog).  Several years could happen between games for a couple of decades, but then rules were pretty poor and only Fire and Fury and 'They Died for Glory' were inspirational and these were later 19th Century rules.

In the early 1990's Ian sold his 15mm collection of Napoleonics to me.  I thought I would do something with them. For some reason I based them in 50 man units and tried to use the Barry Edwards set of rules which I hated. So Napoleonics was put back on the back burner again.  Ten years ago I got General de Brigade which looked good and so started a 28mm collection. This proved hard work to paint.  I switched to 18mm AB, painted one unit, and found this even harder!  They are such detailed figures that I really felt I had to put all the lace on so I did - but it took a long time and the rewards did not match the time taken.  I bought the Perry's 28mm Waterloo French Infantry - in greatcoats.  These painted better but I still only wanted to paint 4 men at any one time...whereas normally I would paint up to 24 men for other periods!  So I painted any other period except Napoleonics.  Napoleonics became the period to start 'next year'.

I still read the Napoleonic books and watched Sharpe and the interest has always been there.  I have more recently become more aware of the passage of time and also of ground scale.  The realisation that I would probably never paint all of the units of Waterloo and also that having a board big in 28mm would mean it being enormous! And also unplayable in an evening - even over a weekend - or even a week!  So I made the decision to switch to 6mm.  This would mean I could play those battles of the Peninsula and have 3 miles of battlefield scaled down - enough to satisfy the meglomaniac in me who wants to use whole armies and see how whole battles unfolded.

So I decide that those old 15mm Minifigs had to go on Ebay.  I got them out and started to price them up.  As I lined them up they started to form units and formations and by the time I finished calculating I realised that I had the makings of a very playable army indeed!  By some reorganising I could make double the number of units that I had and easily put on 4 brigades a side (give or take a few missing command stands as will be seen on some photos).

So here we are...my 15mm army is now seeing action for the first time in its existence since being painted up nearly 30 years ago by Ian.  I have rebased them in the last few weeks (work in progress!) and new flags will follow.  I am a bit of a figure snob in 28mm and really like the best figures but in 15mm these figures are not covered in excessive sculpting detail and in fact, in close order, they look really very nice indeed. Minifigs may not be fashionable anymore but en-masse these look great on the table...and their range is huge!

So the gaps will be filled in...other units will join them and whole scenarios will be played out - not whole battles but the major actions - the attack of the Imperial Guard, The battle for Placenoit etc and these old figures will take their place with their newer colleagues.

I used Black Powder and their Napoleonic supplements for this first game - all heavily modified by our own in-house amendments and what a game it was.  My British left flank was rolled up as my cavalry and then my Brunswickers started to break.  It was an outstanding game.  It has taken 30 years to get them on the table but there will be a lot more hot work for them ahead and soon!

Normandy - Forward Air Controller - M3 Scout Car

This is the Battlefront produced 15mm M3 Scout Car with Forward Air Controller.  As models go, this is a really useful and interesting one to deploy in Normandy games.  The air supremacy of the Allies over Normandy is undeniable and the use of aircraft in the ground support role was a major factor.

I really enjoyed putting this model together.  I love the characters included with the kit.  The above photo focuses on the radio operator with his kit in the back.

It's interesting that the FAC's usually wore their blue RAF tunics in the front line and made a point to be well presented (see last photo at the bottom of page).  I really enjoyed putting all the detail into this Flight Lieutenant. It was time to get the single hair brush out again! It was also a nice change after several weeks of painting shades of olive green and khaki.

I am sure that this vehicle will be coming into play a lot in the future in my games with the 'Panzergrenadier Deluxe' rules, and bringing my Victrix Typhoons roaring overhead to attack the SS divisions in the bocage.

Below is one of the most amazing photos.  The Forward Air Controllers really did look like this and here is the primary evidence. 

I know that it is currently fashionable to carry out revisionist history exercises, often done by new history authors in an attempt to sell books.  Recently YouTube 'pundits' seem to be delighting in stats showing that air attacks over Normandy were not as effective at knocking out German heavy armour as the airforces claimed.

 I have no doubt that it is easy to be over optimistic in the heat of battle and the analysts at the time found that there were less AFVs lost to ground attack aircraft in Normandy than claimed when air crews arrived back to base.  However, for the German's - being on the receiving end of rocket firing Typhoons is not going to be good for morale, nerves, soft skinned vehicles or human skin.  I don't think that the allied infantry would have been that displeased to see Typhoons streaking overhead to support them, and that ultimately, is all that really matters.

Normandy - Loyd Carriers with 6 Pounders

As so often seen on this blog, I go in cycles with my interest in wargaming history.  I am glad at least that I always return back to favourite periods and nothing 'drops off' permanently.  I do find that it is also seasonal.  

For some reason, in the summer I tend to paint and read up either about the English Civil War or the Normandy campaign.  Perhaps it is because for over a decade, I spent weekends re-enacting the Civil War and it was almost always in the summer.  In the summer the high overgrown hedges in the country lanes do often bear similarities to the newsreel footage of the bocage in 1944.

So my attentions have been in Normandy again as we can see here.  This particular Loyd Carrier is something I started in the evenings whilst being away from home on a course for 2 weeks in 2016.  My friend Dave, also on the course, followed my grim (and possible insane) determination to build kits and paint after a hard day staring at computer screens rather than go out and do something more interesting.  For some reason I never finished this Loyd Carrier until I picked it back up a couple of weeks ago.  It is from the Loyd Carrier and 6 Pounder set by Plastic Soldier Company.  It is in 15mm Scale (1:100) so the model of the carrier is only a few centimetres long.  It always amazes me how much detail that can be seen and painted in something so small.

I have long been interested by the battle for Hill 112 in Normandy.  This was prompted by a book I bought as a teenager.  The book was 'Hill 112' by Major JJ Howe MC. It is a book I take down from my book case very often.  I discovered in 2004 at my Great Grandmother's funeral that one of her brothers was there in the battle for Hill 112 with 5th Battalion Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry.  I was told this by my Great Great Uncle (another brother of my Great Grandmother), who himself had been in the DCLI and then the Kings Regiments (and had been at Dunkirk and the whole of the siege of Malta).  So for this reason also, I wanted the unit to be part of 5 DCLI, 43 Wessex Division.

Once the unit decision was made, it was a case of researching badges and finding photos on-line.  I learned a lot about the unit markings.  Unfortunately I couldn't find a company who made 15mm decals for the Wessex Division or the appropriate numbering so I hand painted these on the carriers. This didn't turn out too badly.  I noticed from photos that the numbering was sometimes applied quite crudely without stencilling.

The Universal Carrier above has the '68' of 1st Worcesters painted on quite crudely.

With a bit of Normandy dust and weathering the badges were toned down a bit and seem quite passable.

I always used to think that the British uniforms and vehicles were very dull, but, just like British uniforms in 1918, there is a multitude of badges and coloured flashes on the uniforms and it was fun representing these on the sleeves with a single haired brush!

With the anti-tank 6 pounder's I found myself going to the length of finding out how the armour piercing shells were marked up and painted these too.  The Plastic Soldier Company kits always assemble really well and very crisply.  The kits pleasingly come with lots of ammunition boxes and loose shells ready for use and these add to the scene nicely, giving a sense of urgency.  I'm sure the ammunition boxes are not secured to Larkhill standards, however, one can feel that a counter-attack of Panthers is expected and all are ready to receive them!

I like to make the units unique and fit into my formations.  Once I finished this one model (after it's patient 2 year wait!)  I decided I would make and paint the remaining 3 models in the box!   I was quite enthusiastic after completing my first one.  The Loyd carrier had always struck me as appearing rather old fashioned and somewhat dull, but once built and painted with crew in place it looked more like a very practical and powerful tracked beast with an appearance that made me wish I could drive one.  How much fun would that be!

Building and painting the remainder took about a week of evenings.  These 3 carriers and guns will suffice as the Anti-Tank Platoon for the Battalion.  I use 'Panzergrenadier Deluxe' rules and units are scaled down.  So in reality there would have been 6 guns.   I must admit that Panzergrenadier Deluxe are my rules of choice for WW2.  I have tried many and for me these rules give the period the best feel.  The importance of reconnaissance, cohesive orders, and the tension of advancing onto an apparently empty battlefield whilst trying to pre-empt what is bound to follow when the first shot whistles across the battlefield really does make it a great and quite tense game.

There were 4 vehicles in the box and so this one was the remainder.  Rather than leave it in the box as an odd one out, I painted it also. This one is now part of 4th Battalion, Wiltshire Regiment of 43 Wessex Division.

The Loyd Carrier above is painted with the '64' of the Machine Gun battalion of the 43rd Wessex Division.

The Universal Carrier above marked with '56' is one of 4 Wiltshire's vehicles

So what's next...well I have painted a few more vehicles recently (or completed should I say as these too have been sat undercoated for two years!).  I will post these up shortly.  But my painting desk is currently empty with a choice of troops from 2000 years of history to choose from.  More dark greens and khaki or perhaps some scarlet coats?  We will see!