6mm Trojan Allies

In assembling models for the the 6mm Trojan War project, I have given much consideration of how to interpret some of the more vague elements, but none has given me more to think about than the allies of Troy. Other than the Lucca and Anatolians there are the Amazons, Thracians and Ethiopians, all of which are psuedo-historical allies. The sketchy history of these allies allows much in the way of interpretation.

First of all, and easiest are the Thracians. The Thracians are described as savage warriors fighting with sword and spear led by a commander in a grand chariot. From what I have managed to leanr and pick up from various sources, there Thracians of this time would have been little different than their later brethren.

They would not likely have developed the Falx yet but would very likely have dressed in the same or a similar manner as they do in later centuries. In 6mm this is particularly easy to pull off and I think that I can pretty much use Baccuss or Irregular's Thracians directly. For their leader I was thinking that I could get by with maybe a Hitite leader on a chariot with a few clever minor modifications and paint.

Then there are the Amazons. For these ladies I was planning on using Scythians. At 6mm scale it's going ot be nearly impossible to tell male from female so it shouldn't matter much and their mode of dress and weapon mix would work well. I did consider throwing in some of Baccus' elven heroes from their fantasy line for some variety.

Ethiopians will be made from a combination of Kushite and Egyptian figures. Though it seems unlikely that the Ethiopians would have travelled so far, there were ties between some of the earlier Egyptian kingdoms and the region where Troy supposedly exsisted, so these soldiers make sense. They would have been chariot warriors, supported by troops armed with javelin and spear and an array of hand weapons.

The Lucca and Anatolians are already supported by miniatures appropriate for these peopless, so no adaptation or searching really needs to be done.

Ether, The Final Frontier

It's been an exciting week. Since we got it in our heads to play Aeronef, the groups has been abuzz with ideas for fleets and scratchbuilt ships. There has been a lot of talk about what sort of ships we wanted and Krazygit managed to pull a pretty nice build off ...

As you can see, it's a very basic design and still has a lot of detail to be worked out. And yes, he was going for a Star Trek look. KG likes to spoof things in his games and it's all in good fun, so why not.

There's a Rocket in Your House or Budget Gaming 102

A few weeks back I cobbled this little gem as a sort of proof of concept for my rocket ship from household junk idea.



Though not made entirely of household junk, I think it's a nice demonstration of what you can do with stuff you have laying around or can collect from household waste and a few bits. The main body of ship is a bottle from a popular brand of children's yogurt drink. The canopy was crudely sculpted, in just a few minutes, from green stuff as were the headlamps. The rocket nozzel at the back is the cap off of another children's drink bottle. For the skids, I used pieces clipped off a plastic hanger, specifically thoe little hook parts used for hanging yours or your wife's delicates.

For detail bits I added a nosecone made from the spout off of a glue bottle, an engine from an old miniatures kit and a single sprocket from a 1/72 tank model.

The whole thing turned out quite nice, though in the future I will likely try to find an inexpensive model canopy to use instead of sculpting them and perhaps I can also find somethin to use as headlamps to ease construction. Thisi s just the first "Rocket Pod" and I can think of a lot of ways t use the same yogurt bottle to make a variety of small rocket ships scaped to 28mm or even larger vessels for 15mm.

6mm Trojan War

The concept for my Trojan War project was a simple one - find a happy medium between the legendary and historical aspects of the conflict. Having decided this I had to decide which aspects I wanted to include. This too, was a simple choice as Homer's accounting provides a nice cross section of old and new making his accounting a nice "wargame-able" setting. The variety of Homer's "Iliad" is enhanced by the inclusion of elements from other stories such as the Amazon, African and Thracian ally contingents that comes to the aid of Troy.

So, I had figured out what I wanted to include -

1. Variety of tactics - old and new style units combining loose order spear and javelin warriors with long spear and tower shields.
2. Trojan allies.

A pretty simple list, but then again it was a pretty simple decission. The next thing to do was to figure out where to get all this stuff.

This was a challenge because Mycenaean Greece is notoriously under supported in the hobby. There are countless ranges for other Biblical era armies but you are lucky to find more than a hand full of Greek ranges for this era. Add to this the obscurity of 6mm and guess what...you've got like one line Irregular Miniatures.

Irregular is an oldy but a goody. Despite some issues with the way they base up their 6mm figs, they are nicely thought out and a HUGE range. There is also Baccus and, if you can find them, Heroics and Ross, but neither does anything dedicated to Mycenaean Greece. This does however lead me into the next step of the plan...

Budget Gamng 101

If you have ever found yourself wanting to work on a project and found yourself strapped for funds or just wanting to do something fun, you'd be surprised at what you have lurking in your home.

The image above is of a recent challenge I put to myself. The challenge was to devise a pulp-styled rocket ship that was made entirely of things I had in the house. So I scavenged through my cabinets, my lundry room, bathrooms and even my recycling and found everything in the crudely drawn diagram above. Sure the design is a bit crude and it does need a bit of refinment, but, with everything in my home I could easily, with a little paint, get this puppy on the table.

A few quick notes on things that have come into evidence since I started -

1. A single 2-litre bottle isn't long enough to make a good rocket. Either down-size your rocket to a 1-litre or stretch your 2-litre by adding a part of another bottle.
2. Plastic spoons may not fit so well, so you may want to try using an alternate method of assembling the front view ports.
3. Make sure that you let your kids know you only need them to save a couple of bottle for your hobby, lest you find your painting table covered by every single bottle they could scrounge up.

15mm Sci-Fi Conversion

I know I had mentioned posting some stuff from back before the blog, so thought I'd lead off with this one. A while back I had started working on a 15mm scale homebrew sci-fi setting placed in a pretty gritty universe of politics and nation on nation conflict. This was to be a setting that wasn't too far removed, politically and socially speaking, from our own world. I had kicked around a number of ideas, and while I was planning my faction, started working on a few models to get thing rolling. The first one I came up with was this thing.



Though the modelling is a bit crude (never claimed to be any kind f grand master) it is effective and nicely converts an WW2 American M20 Scout Car into a hovercraft skimmer with just a little green stuff. I managed to get about three of these done, crewing them with Peter Pig 15mm Israeli Vehicle Crew.

We have yet to play in this setting, though I do continue to tinker with it. If anything, it makes for a great side project to work at every once in a while.

Aeronef Ahoy!

Rather than unload a lifetime's worth of gaming on you, I thought I might begin with a recent project. There will be plenty of time to delve into my gaming history.

For some time I have been interested in the concept of airships and their like. I have been a big fan of Victoran Science Fiction for sometime and also the various other permutations of the broader genre now called Steampunk. I had heard about Wessex Games' "Aeronef" ages ago, but had never been able to conjure enough interest in my group to justify diving into it. Flash forward to the present and we are now gearing up to play it.

Taking the initative, I challenged my group to cobble up some scratchbuilt fleets, having had an interest in doing so myself. I shared with them some of the ideas I had seen on various sites and posts over the years I had considered the game. So far we hve two navies in the planning stages.

My buddy (he goes by Krazygit online) decided to go with the tired and true method of making airships using plastic model bombs and fuel tanks, plastic card, and balsa wood. Thisi s a quick and easy way to get into the game as a single box o bombs will usually give you an entire fleet. I beleive the set he went with was a 1/48 scale model set from Accurate Miniatures.

It cost him about $20 for about 20 usable bombs/torpedoes, etc.. I know there are some other products out there so you may find something better but it works. Now that he had decided on what direction he was going, it was my turn.

I decided that if we were going to be making our own gaming pieces then I wanted to do something that I couldn't buy. Why put in the labor to build what was already done? I had recently discovered an anime series called Last Exile, which is on the more modern cusp of the whole Steampunk genre, and found therein some lovely airships. I became especially enamored with the Anatoray Battleships.

The Anatoray Battleships look like they are built with technology contemporary with Aeronef's published technology. They are essentially vertically oriented Predreadnoughts consistent with late 19th, early 20th century technology and style. I am hoping to capture the style of these ships through the careful and modest use of card, balsa and a few beading accesories. If I can avoid it, I won't be buying a single piece of actual purpose made detailing, though that may go out the window.

Now, let's see how this fleshes out, shall we...

Why The Blog

Just as I am sure many of you do, I also do not classify myelf in any particular genre of miniatures gaming. I am equally at home with a set of fantasy rules as I am historical and can swing around and do sci-fi the next day. But, this is not to say that I do not have favorites. After spending many years trudging through this system and that I have learned that there are a few things I like, and a few things I can live without.

Primary among my dislikes would be oppressive systems and the players that come with them. Though I do realise that certain games have to have some framework and theme, I do not accept the strict, often fanboyish adherence to theme, back-story or even history that a lot of players seem determined to dictate to ayone they play with. This is just distastful and often leaves me looking for a quick route away from the table. But enough about that.

In games, I really do find myself gravitating toward a game with a nice stats bar. It's an odd quirk, but I tend to get into systems where I have clearly defined numerical aspects that paint, at least, semi-detailed picture of the pieces I'm playing with. Abstraction is nice, and can certainly help things along, but if there aren't a lot of numbers before me, I tend to have a hard time connecting to the game. I think this is an attraction born of my love of tinkering with game systems. The more stats there are, the more I can wiggle this way and that and make something new or more interesting (IMHO).

With all that being said, that's what this place is about. The things I like, the fun I've had, and the stuff I and my small gaming group are working on. I may not be the most prolific poster, but I'll try to keep it going as much as my life with all its demands allows for.

I hope you will enjoy watching it grow with me, and welcome any constructive comments and feedback.

Thanks,

Eli