Tactica 2016 Review (1) - Some excellent tables!

For the 11th time now in Hamburg the Tactica wargaming show took place. Last weekend wargamers from more or less whole Europe gathered there and enjoyed the hobby we all have in common. A lot of clubs came by and presented some really exciting games. Wonderful table everywhere around and a couple of excellent traders who exposed alluring things for sale. And of course it was once again a perfect place to meat old friends and make some new. So I met Teemu a nice guy from Finnland who played our games at least during the last three years, made the wonderful acquaintance of Nick aka. Moiterei1984, met some fellows from Berlin and Antwerp which I knew from earlier shows and of course was able to chat with some jolly good chaps from England who made the jump over the channel again. Actually the chance to meat all those fellows makes Tactica so precious for me and is the real icing on the cake.

In a later post I'll cover the game we brought to Hamburg (a skirmish during the 1801 fightings in Egypt) but now let me start with a selection of those excellent table the other clubs brought:

Königgrätz 1866 - Frankfurter Partisanen (Grand Tactical Rules)

The Prussian Command

Paint Table Saturday - Navy, Artillery and Risk Takers

After a longish absence I told myself to come back to blogging more regularly. last year one of the embosomed habits of mine was the regular contribution to the 'Paint Table Saturday' group. So what could be better than coming back to that again.

Currently there are a couple of different project on my workbench:

The two chaps in the foreground are captains from Brigade Games wonderful range of Napoleonic British seamen. For now they'll top my collection off. There are a couple of seamen and gun crew to be painted but since they aren't bought yet I'll leave it with fourteen figures for now.

Behind them you see my piece for the 'Risk Taker' bonus round of Curt's painting challenge. I don't want to give too many hints but most of you should recognise that smuggler anyway. Actually he's finished already but he needs some varnish now.

Besides those I (finally) decided to paint my AWI British 6pdr gun and crew. I'm not sure whether I'll be able to finish them in time for the challenge but however it's time to get those chaps ready for action since I painted the limbered version nearly a year ago. Remember? Here.

Last but not least a couple of twins:

It's Warlord Games's interpretation of Oberst Kurt Steiner which some of you might know from the classic war film 'The Eagle has landed'. In this movie Sir Michael Caine plays the German Fallschirmjäger colonel who gets the order to kidnap or kill Winston Churchill during a secret mission behind enemy lines. He and his fellow soldiers jump off over Britain and try to get hold of the Prime Minister while he's spending some time in the county.

Since a couple of fellows and me want to play this story as a Bolt Action scenario I wanted to have the figure for my own and since Curt asked to have a 'Risk Taker' miniature as entrance fee (aka. 'Curtgeld') I decided to paint a second one right away.

That's it for now... Back to the desk...

Enjoy your weekend !

Hart of Oak are our Ships, jolly Tars are our men... - More 28mm sailors

As one of my ridiculously small projects this winter I tackled some British seamen for the Napoleonic era. Six of them were my lousy output for January and some others had to follow until late February when Tactica wargaming show was scheduled. As you see it's late February now and I'm lucky to present more tars now:

Unit from both batches

Altogether there were eight more navymen that I finished during the last weeks. Actually once again lousily few figures but somehow my life hasn't hobby convenient lately. Anyway the following chaps are once again from Brigade Games's excellent range. The sculpts were from Paul Hicks and as usual they are full of character and detail. Although it seems his virtuosity with face increased since he made those figures they are absolutely brilliant and top notch among all other 28mm figures tackling this topic.

In detail those are the men I painted:

Rather a mixed bag of weapons as you would expect from a quickly assembled boarding or landing party. Once again I tried to break uniformity slightly with varying the colours of the trousers. I painted to of the dark blue and used different shades of beige for the other ones.

Anyway there were two very characterful figures I wanted to bring out:

The seasoned one armed veteran and the chap who is wearing a headscarf caught my eye since I started to clean the castings. Thus they acquired striped trousers. No piece of art but I hope you like the touch.

Altogether there are 14 finished sailors now 12 of which hit the board on Tactica wargaming show last weekend. But more on that in a couple of days...

Tactica show this weekend !

Unbelievable that not only days but once again weeks have passed since my last post. I'm deeply sorry that I was absent for such a long time again but somehow I haven't been able to turn the corner and get myself back to regular blogging. The first weeks of 2016 were simply too stressful at work and too busy at home...

Hobbywise I had a few games that I took pictures of to write some short AARs but even didn't manage to do that. But promised rather soon here'll come some pictures from Star Wars X-Wing and Armada. On the other hands the chaps from the THS club and me were preparing our presentation game for Tactica wargaming show which will take place this very weekend in Hamburg. This time we'll lead our highly appreciated audience to Egypt and show them a battle between French, British and Arabian troops during Napoleon's Egypt campaign. It's a skirmish level struggle for which we use an excellent variant of the Lion Rampant engine. It'll be featured in one of the upcoming Wargames Illustrated but we were lucky enough to do some advance play testing with them. They went really smoothly and allowed us some exciting and joyful beer and prezel matches. Exactly my cup of tea!

Anyway for this game I promised to contribute at least a unit of British tars. You saw six of them in my very last post and six more left the painting table last week. I'll feature them in a later article because they'll have to participate in the naval bonus round of the AHPC (Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge) but here a quick group shot:

Old and new tars

But now I have to get my stuff sorted because we'll head to Hamburg rather early tomorrow and some family duties have to be fulfilled before.

Enjoy your weekend!

Maybe I'll see some of you in Hamburg...

A British tar is a soaring soul... - 28mm seamen

During the last weeks it was rather quiet on my painting desk. Different things kept me away from paint and brushes and somehow I was lacking kind of 'painting mojo'. Last week I was lucky enough to have some free time and started painting a nice set of figures which I ordered last December from US manufacturer Brigade Games. Lon has a very nice of Napoleonic figures for different theatres of war starting with the very early Egypt Campaign but covering the Peninsular War and the War of 1812 as well. However there are some very nice sets of British seamen which were sculpted by master sculptor Paul Hicks. I wanted to have them for our upcoming participation game at Tactica Wargaming Show and of course for the 'Navy' bonus round of the painting challenge. Some more tars on my workbench make sure that I'll not miss the bonus round but after two weeks of absence I though a sign of life in the form of a sestet of those jolly good chaps might be appropriate:

The figures are from different packs of the range but I decided to paint more or less the command figures first. The centrepiece of this bunch are a dashing lieutenant and a seasoned boatswain.

Followed by two young and eager midshipmen:

This first batch is completed by two able seamen accompanying their leaders:

Altogether a nice range of highly detailed sculpts. The poses are very dynamic and realistic. On those chaps I tested the colour combinations and stayed to blue and white more or less. For the other 'common' seamen I'll alter this colour sheme slightly to depict the inconsistency of 19th century navy dress. Since the seamen were responsible for most of their clothing they had a really mixed bag of shirts and trousers. Merely for the jackets I'll stay with a uniform blue tone to create some cohesion in the unit.

However I hope you like the paintjob.