Pre-dread Cruisers

 The fleets are continuing to be built. Completed two ships last night. The lead ship is LNS (Federal Union of Laramidia naval ship) Arkandelphia, boasting 4--8' guns and 12--6" guns, followed by the light, protected cruiser the CRN Chupacabra with 6--6" guns. The Chupacabra is the first modern warship of the small but scrappy Republic of Ceviche. 

The Chupacabra is a fearsome yet noble beast that still roams the hinterlands of Ceviche. It is prominent on the republic's flag. Though a peace-loving nation, Ceviche has been forced to build up its military due to the threats by its increasingly aggressive neighbor Escalona. Ceviche and Laramidia are in talks to transfer the Arkandelphia to Ceviche. Laramidia would gain the rights pterosaur guano mining concessions. 

The two ships are involved in training exercises commanded by Captain Kurtas K. Kampka shown below in his tropical uniform.

Game of Team Yankee

 Friday, I got in a game of Team Yankee at Will's gaming store. I'm not sure why, but I enjoyed it more than the Fames of War game I played two weeks ago. Will ended up winning, but I enjoyed blowing up his Soviet tanks with my M1 Abrams. Surprisingly, ATGMs on both sides were not all that effective.  Here are some pics of the game. 

I also finished up another pre-dread warship. This is an one off, test ship.

I used layers of corrugated cardboard for the hull and used styrene plastic tubing for the gun casemates. I also experimented with using different materials for the main turrets. Not all that happy about it, but it helped me figure out what worked. It is very loosely based on the USS Olympia, which I didn't know was rated a protected cruiser. 

New Project: Pre-Dreadnoughts

 I have hinted several times now that I am diving into a new project. The new project is pre-dreadnought naval warfare set in an ImagiNation world. I will have a future post on the various opponents and fictional-historical background, but first a look at what's being built in the shipyard.

The basis for my hulls and superstructures are various-sized popsicle and coffee stirring sticks.

Here are couple of hulls: 

Generic torpedo boat destroyer hull

Light or Protected Cruiser hull

Many years ago, I built a fleet of US, British, and Japanese WWII ships for gaming. From a time and quality control standpoint, its a lot better to make copies of at least the hulls than to try to carve out each one individually. So, I played around with make molds out of my initial wooden hull.  Back then, there were little options for making molds of hulls. Now there are a lot more mold making choices that are more easy, health and environment friendly, and probably cheaper than back in the 80s. One of which is this transparent material that comes in rectangular sticks. It is listed on Amazon as reusable mold clay, but it has the Japanese name Oyumaru. It softens quickly in hot water. You have to work with it rather quickly but it makes nice push molds that hold a lot of detail and doesn't shrink. They suggest to avoid any casting material that will give off heat as it will remelt the mold, but I have yet to experience that. 

Once I made my mold, I tried an number of different materials to to cast ship hulls. 

From left to right of the above picture is the original wood hull, the next three are green polymer clay, the white one is Milliput, next is from multiple layers of clear UV resin, next is from moldable plastic beads, and the last two are from cheap fast drying two part epoxy clay. The one on the end hasn't been cleaned up yet. 
The winner would be the moldable plastic beads. Like the Oyumaru, they melt in hot water and can be pressed into a mold. HOWEVER, its made of High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) plastic is the same stuff that milk jugs are made out of. There is no glue I know of that will stick to the stuff! So, the winner ends up being this two part clay that you can buy at any hardware or home improvement store in the US. You have to work fast, but so long as you press it in well, you get a very good reproduction. It is mushier than Milliput, but that is an advantage as it gets into crevasses better, not to mention its a lot cheaper. Its other advantage is that you can use super glue on it and even though its impregnated with iron, you can drill holes in it. I was surprised how difficult it was to drill a hole in the HDPE plastic. 

Once I made the hulls, I then started building the ships. 

Torpedo boat destroyers with their conning tower and forward gun

Here is the finished but unpainted destroyers. 

I used a combination of wire, thin cardstock, and dowel rods to build them. I ended up using that HDPE plastic hull, but I roughed up its surface a lot, glued things down with the superglue, and then flooded it with the thin UV glue. Fingers crossed that things will hold. 

Here is an early pre-dread battleship:

Battleship in progress. Along side is a destroyer. Its seems that
there is a fire erupting on the dock in the background! I hope
that freighter is not loaded with explosives!

Finished battleship. Now it needs to be painted and based. 

The mighty battleship Curmudgeon leaves port followed by the torpedo boat destroyers Swiftly, Speedily, Quickly, and Hurriedly.

Quick Game of Flames of War

Will, friend and owner of the closest gaming shop around, got some Flames of War starter sets. Will likes historical gaming but his clientele are 40K zombies (sorry not sorry) so it is rare to find someone who is willing to play historicals.  I have the rules and always wanted to play, but there were some things in the rules I didn't understand no matter how many times I read them. So, I jumped at the opportunity to play. I should have taken pictures, but my opponent was someone I didn't know and some people adverse to getting their picture taken by strangers.

Will acted as referee. I took the US and my opponent the Germans. I had more tanks but in addition to PzIVh tanks, he also had a battery of 75mm Pak 40 anti-tank guns that sat in a forest edge and picked off most of my Shermans. My infantry did manage to put some hurt on his infantry but he had a 2 to 1 superiority in numbers. The other advantage is that the German light machineguns do not count as heavy weapons, but the US 30 cal machineguns do. This makes a huge difference when having assaults as heavy weapons are penalized during assaults. Assaults are the main ways infantry can be effective. 

The Germans clearly won, but they lost most of their tanks and almost one of their two platoons of infantry. I think I would have done a little better if those nasty 75mm Pak 40s weren't present.

It was a fun game and it answered a number of puzzlements I had with the rules. 

Cheap Game Table Mat Work in Progress

 As I mentioned in my previous post, I am switching gears after suffering painting burn out. It is time to actually play games rather than just paint hoards of figures. The few battles that I have had were on unnaturally colors tables. As cool as those neoprene, giant mouse pads are, they are way too expensive for me. I'd go with felt, but I found that the width dimensions are short and I am no good at sewing. I found these plastic backed table cloths at Walmart for about $5. They are textured but slick. I tested a spot with craft acrylic paint and it sticks and does not seem crack when gently folded.

I started with a big bottle of leaf green craft paint that I had from a previous attempt to make a mat. Unfortunately, I ran out before I was completely done with this one. Guess what? They don't make leaf green anymore. I got the closest thing I could find plus a darker green for a little variation. 

I'm using a wadded up paper towel to apply the paint and rubbing it on. I figured that if I use a brush the paint layer may be too thick and it might be subject to cracking. The paper towel seems to waste some paint but puts down a very thin layer that I go over again when dried. If the decorative pattern peaks through a little, its no big deal.

I'm almost done with it. When its finished, I will make another one in blue for naval games.

Painting in progress. Objects other than the
craft paint bottles holds the table cloth down while I paint.

Bytor and the Snow Dog

 This is probably the longest time I have gone without posting. Its not like I have not been doing anything hobby wise, it is just that I have not had the time to post. Also, a lot of things have been happening in my life, mainly my mother passing away over the 4th of July weekend. It was not unexpected but it was still unexpected. We came up for our annual summer visit to see my mom and sister and her family. We got there on the 3rd and she passed away on either very late on the 4th or early in the morning on the 5th. It further reinforces one of those morbid cliches that once an elderly person breaks a bone, it is quickly downhill health wise. She had broken her ankle in late November and it all went down hill from there. It has been hard and I am still processing it all. It does not help that I am the executor and have to figure out how to handle the estate.

In terms of the hobby, I have been on a roll to paint up as many 15s as I could. I really wanted to whittle down the pile. I have a new project that I have started so really wanted to clear the deck, so to speak. I still have a pile of lead to be painted but I feel like I can switch project now.

One of the last few figures painted is Bytor and the Snow Dog. If you are a RUSH fan, you will know which RUSH albums they come from. Yes, Bytor is a bad guy who fights and loses to the Snow Dog, but in a later song Bytor is a good guy that defeats the Necromancer. The main reason for these two is that long ago, in the very early 80s, one of the members of the D&D group I played in named his fighter Bytor. As he went up a few levels, the DM gave him an animal companion (familiar) that was a large beast that was part  arctic wolf/part polar bear. This was Snow Dog. They fought many battles together. I've aways wanted to have a model of these two in my 15mm world. This is my interpretation based on what I could find in 15mm scale:

I wanted a more fantasy Viking figure to be Bytor, but this Wiglaf Miniatures warlord did the trick. Nothing really matched my vision of Snow Dog. I thought of using a Reaper Miniature wolf or dire wolf, but they were way too big. I happened to find this wolf from Lone Gunman Miniatures and seemed to be a good size as it was a little larger than some of the other manufacturers' dire wolves. 

For fun, I played around with having them on a snow base, with some iced over puddles on Snow Dog's base. 

Now that I've got my 15mm painting out of my system, I am moving on to my next project. 

Kimangela

 I found this 15mm at the bottom of the pile. I have no idea who makes her, but folks on the 15mm fantasy Facebook page think it might be Battle Valor games. She was painted by committee, namely two of my colleagues at school, Kim and Angela, who decided on the colors including the hair color. 

For some reason, she has a mask on top of her head. It reminded me of the Loki mask from Jim Carey's movie The Mask. I painted it gold and then gave it a green wash. Hopefully, it will not have the same effect on Kimangela that it did on Jim Carey when he put it on over his face.

My Birthday Present

Its my birthday and I wants it.

Saturday was my birthday. I decided a week before that I would buy myself a present. Its not often that you turn 64 and have a song about it. What I wanted was a foam cutting table. What I needed was an ultrasonic cleaner. It is not often, but there are times when I need to clean minis. Occasionally, it is when I buy another person's figures and I want to repaint them, but more often, it is due to a catastrophic painting disaster, usually involving bad primer. A voice inside of me said, "no, don't do it!", but I had a can of almost full automotive primer that was sitting far in the back of the shelf in the garage. I don't know if it was the primer itself, or that the temperature in the garage was suboptimal, but the result was at least 50+ guys coated with a very grainy primer. I soaked them for a week in turpentine and then for about five days in Simple Green. Even with an old tooth brush it did not get much of the primer off. So, I went to a local discount tool store called Harbor Freight and got an ultrasonic cleaner. 

  

These used to be very expensive, but are now more affordable. It was well rated by the miniatures community. I did a test run and it definitely sped up the cleaning process. I still needed to go over a few with the tooth brush again, but for the most part, I am pretty happy with how well they got cleaned. I think there seems to be a correlation between the type metal and the ease of cleaning. Essex miniatures, which are of a softer metal, seemed to resist cleaning more than compared to either Museum Miniatures or Khurasan Miniatures. Both have harder metal. For my next cleaning project I bought a whole bunch of 3mm WWII and modern miniatures awhile ago, and want to repaint those.

 

It's Already March!

 Its not like I have not been completely inactive in terms of the hobby, I just have not had all that much time to put anything up on the old blog. Most of what I have been doing is painting, as usual, so I didn't feel what I have done warranted posting. Life also seems to get in the way. My 94-year-old mother broke her ankle back in early December. She had surgery on it, but its been a struggle to get her to do physical therapy. At least now she is home, though still in bed. I feel bad for my sister who is in charge of care giving, including dealing with our "wonderful" healthcare system. 

For the past several months, my thoughts have veered back to my modern ImagiNation world, and also naval wargaming. I've always been a fan of naval wargaming. My friends and I back in high school played a lot of naval games using homemade ship models.  In an earlier post, I talked about some possible projects. What has really sparked nautical gaming interests lately is the posts over at Archduke Piccolo's blog and at Bob Cordrey's blog. They have been designing some simple but effective naval rules. I have been looking in to their rules as well as potential rules used in boardgames. 

I have purchased several of the various War at Sea series by Avalanche Press, including this one: 

I have yet to play any of them, but have read over the rules several times. They all have the same core rules with tweaks for different time periods. 

Another, even simpler set of rules is the classic Avalon Hill Midway. I have the original set and recently, purchased on eBay some supplemental ships and rules. 

The number of ships are greatly expanded beyond those in the original. I think with some tweaking of the rules, they can make for a quick and playable set of rules. 

There a a number of other rules to explore including Cordrey's Gridded Naval Wargames and David Manley's various naval rules.