"...And who will tell my Legions, who loved Caesar, that it was not murder?"

OK... here is the deal... I need legionaries, 64 of them (actually I need 128, but I can borrow some). So today I have six sprues of Warlord Games plastic Roman legionaries in front of me. I am goning to take them out to the parking lot and prime them. Then the painting will begin. I have the better part of three days to finish this. Let's see if I can make a go of it.

"Remember what the general said; we're the cavalry. It would be bad form to arrive in advance of schedule."

My British Airborne group (special order) finally arrived:

I cleaned and based the two company command teams, the observer and the staff teams. By my estimation I have everyone standed or on painting sticks I need for my Airlanding Company. The exception being I haven't bought the Tetrarchs, nor have I bought all of the necessary jeeps I need.

My progress so far:

• Company Command, cleaned, based & primed
• All my Airlanding platoons (4) are all primed and have the flesh painted.
• All (8) 6 pdr AT guns are assempled; primed & base coated in Russian Uniform.
• AT crew, cleaned & primed
• 75mm pack howitzers (4) are drilled out, assembled, primed and base coated in Russian Uniform.
• RA artillery crew, cleaned and primed (observer & staff teams cleaned, primed and based)
• Sniper teams (3), Light Mortar teams (4), PIAT teams (6) & Pathfinder team (1) are primed, basecoated, based and bases textured.
• Mortar section cleaned and glued to painting sticks (Observers based and bases textured)
• MG Section cleaned, based and bases textured.
• Two (three)Objectives have been built and mounted on a textured base.

Not sure how I ended up with three objectives. I guess I will use one to test out my base colors

Tim, they call him...

There are no atheists in a foxhole...

The last game I played of Flames of War involved attacking prepared positions, with the defenders starting dug in. Normally when you move out of foxholes, the dug in marker is removed and the foxholes vanish (much like my tax return). The one exception to this is when you counterattack out of foxholes. You may retreat back into them. While it doesn't specifically say so, the folks I play with decided that means you return back to your position prior to the assault. That means there should be some way to mark the holes position.

At first I came up with some markers that I cleverly labeled "Foxholes". I thought the marker lacked something. So I thought about doing a 3D version. I had tried in the past to make markers out of liquitex resin sand, but they took a long time and were costly (the resin sand isn't cheap!).

Next I tried some felt markers... they weren't a whole lot better then my paper foxhole markers.

Then I tried some rubber railroad road bed. It was easy to cut, but only came in black (grey-black). I found you could paint, glue sand or flock them and they looked ok. This was more work than I wanted to do, however.

The final iteration was to use brown cork model railroad road bed. It has the apperance of upturned earth & sand from the beginning. All I have to do is cut them out and bevel the side edges. I knocked about 20 medium base sized foxholes in a couple of hours. No painting, just cut to size, bevel the edges and you are ready to go. The look great too!



I am gonna make some more tonight!

Tim, they call him...

One if by land, and two if by sea;

"One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be..."

Ok... how many if by glider?

I have been working on my British Airlanding company some more.

My progress so far:

• Airlanding platoons (4) are all primed and have the flesh painted.
• 6 pdr AT guns (8) are assembled; primed and base coated (Russian Uniform).
• AT crew cleaned and glued to painting sticks
• 75mm pack howitzers (4) are assembled; primed and base coated (Russian Uniform).
• Royal Artillery crew cleaned and glued to painting sticks
• Sniper teams (3), Light Mortar teams (4), PIAT teams (6) & Pathfinder team (1) are primed, basecoated, based and bases textured.
• Mortar section cleaned and glued to painting sticks (Observers based and bases textured)
• MG Section cleaned, based and bases textured.
• Two Objectives have been built and mounted on a textured base.
  

I have the British Airborne Command on order. It contains some seated airborne troops & drivers as well as the staff, observers and the command team for the Royal Artillery.

On the bases, I am taking extra care with these guys... trying to hide the figure bases with Liquatex sand/resin stuff. I want to work out a different set of colors for the actual base color. Something darker and richer than what I am using now.

That's all for now...

Tim, they call him...

Patriots & Loyalists FAQ

I found these on a PAL yahoo group (that happens to have Scott Holder on it). Unfortunately the group is not really active. The first one is a question I asked.

Q: Under the section Artillery Falling Back (7.5, last paragraph), it says, "...If the unit is artillery, the stand with crew falls back 7" facing the enemy and leaving the artillery piece. Artillery crews having fallen back are not considered in rally formation and may move during their next turn as if in infantry column..." Does this mean that artillery crew in effect 'auto-rally'?

A: Yes - They are allowed to rally automatically as artillery crew do not need to form up like infantry or cavalry.


Q: A unit in line makes contact with a unit in column or a limbered artillery battery. What happens?

A: This situation refers to an Active unit in line moving to contact with either a unit in column or limbered artillery battery. If the Active unit is in column, it cannot into contact. Once the unit makes contact, all movement for the Active unit just making contact is stopped and melee then takes place during the Melee Phase. Don't forget that a unit in column halves its Melee Level. When contacting a limbered artillery battery, again, movement stops for the Active unit and melee takes place during the Melee Phase. In this case, don't draw any Melee Cards. Instead, the artillery battery immediately retreats (as if it were unlimbered) taking the artillery piece with it and it takes a permanent marker.


Q: Isn't skirmish formation too tough? Being in skirmish raises a regiment's morale 10% without lowering firing potential of the unit; is this intentional?

A: Yes. Keep in mind that most units can't skirmish and you could certainly limit it in any given scenario (not all militia "skirmished" in what we could consider a trained tactical formation). Now units like British Converged Lights or the Queen's Rangers that start with 80% morale and can skirmish are certainly tough units to beat.


Q: Are the number of stands a unit fires reduced for each permanent morale marker it takes?

A: No.

"Well, as you know, I always felt we tried to go a bridge too far" - Gen. Browning

I have found something interesting out this past week. It is very satisfying to work on two very opposite projects at the same time. I have been spending a lot of time working on my AWI cavalry and light infantry. When I find them frustrating or boring...I just switch back to my Brit' Airlanding company

It means nothing gets completed fast...but I don't reach those 'blocks' I used to... at least so far.

So for my MW Airlanding Company:

• The four Airlanding platoons are cleaned, glued to painting sticks, primed and base coated flesh; next comes flesh wash and highlighting.
• The MG platoon is cleaned, based and the bases textured; next step is priming.
• The Mortar platoon is cleaned and glued to painting sticks; next step is priming.
• The Airlanding artillery platoon has been cleaned, guns assembled, crews glued to painting sticks; next step is priming.
• One A/T platoon is cleaned and assembled; next step is gluing to paintsticks and priming
• The other A/T platoon is still in the blisters.

I have a fifth Airlanding platoon in a blister. I plan on using the extra figures for the artillery command and staff team and perhaps a platoon of Royal Engineers (flamethrowers).

I will work some more on my Brit's when I get home tonight.

Tim, they call him...

A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse! - Richard III

Progress!

I have sorted out what I have and what I 'need'. I need nothing...what I want however...

Back to what I have:

14 British Legion Cavalry

14 Colonial 3rd Dragoons

35+ light infantry

The fate of the cavalry is self-explanatory... The light infantry on the other hand... 15 will be painted as Legion light infantry. 15 will be painted as miscellaneous Colonial light infantry. The remaining 15 were originally a dilemma. I think the solution is to paint them as the British 16th Regiment of foot dragoons.

Cavalry

So far I have both sets of horses primed, standed and the first highlight coat painted. Tarleton's dragoons are glued to painting sticks and primed. The Colonials are cleaned waiting to be primed.

Infantry
All the light infantry has been cleaned; glued to painting sticks and primed.

Artillery

I have all the guns (2 x 12pdr, 3 x 8pdr & 1 howitzer) cleaned, assembled and primed. I have the crew mounted on two man stands with a number of singles with rare earth magnets in their bases. That allows me to add the odd man to make three crew out of two. These are all primed on their bases, but I might just glue the singles to small stands (which I happen to have) though I do like the 'gimmick' of the magnets. Time will tell. I want to find a 'neutral' way to paint the gunners so they will look fine as either Brit's or Colonials.

Tim, they call him