The 30th Cambridgeshire Regiment

A march of a thousand miles starts ...

Here is my first Napoleonic battalion. The honour goes to 30th Cambridgeshire. The models are from a British Brigade box of Napoleon at War models. I intend playing with the Napoleon at War ruleset although I also have Black Powder and if I paint up enough units for a multi-player game may also use those rules.

I managed not to balance speed painting with quality painting but think they'll look fine in the heat of battle and that's what they're painted for. It took ages to finish them largely because of the difficulty of finding time to paint and also getting distracted by starting my Romano British Dux Britanniarum army half way through. At this rate I'll have a British division painted by the end of 2016. Then I can start on the French and should be playing by the end of the decade.

I used Army Painter red primer and the Army Painter red wash and then the Army Painter strong tone wash. Think I'll go white primer next time and use the strong tone dip. Also have seen some tips about "production line" painting so have stuck six figures onto a stick for next time rather than having them mounted on individual nails like I did this time.

Basing is a bit too lumpy so will revert to builders' sand for next time.

God of Battles

Apart form playing with airfix world war two soldiers as a kid I first started to play wargames in about 1990 when I bought a copy of Warhammer. It had plastic High Elves and Goblins. I carried on playing that game until 2003 when I moved house which meant no cellar to play in. The little models were packed away until another house move last year to a house with a garage and room once again to set up a 6' x 4' table.

I didn't stop playing games during that time, just played boardgames instead. Things like Agricola, El Grande, Power Grid, Imperial and the like. I read about DBA and the fantasy version Hordes of the Things which I bought thinking I could play on a small table. They are possibly the worst rules I have ever read. I am not saying it is not a good game, I know loads of people like it, it is just that the way the book is written I could never get a game started. Alas, I did not know anyone who could teach it to me.

I've no idea what happened to my Warhammer rules in the intervening period. Anyway last year - thanks largely to Neil at the Meeples & Miniatures podcast - I came across a new mass fantasy battle set of rules called God of Battles published by Foundry. I have played a couple of games so far using my old Warhammer Empire and Orc & Goblin armies. It has even inspired me to paint some of those twenty year old models!

I may write a detailed review of the game eventually and if I do I will post it here. In the meantime I will just say it is an excellent game, far superior in my view to Warhammer. The movement rules are excellent, really simple but but effective. It is an easy game to play, really not a lot of rules but cleverly designed throughout.

As I play more I will try and get some battle reports and pictures up on the blog.