Assembled Ship

This is the assembled Tumbling Dice ASN-3 from yesterday's post.  I can probably do a bit better with the next one; I am very pleased with the casting.  That base is about 4.5cm long.

Fleet's In!!

I just received a trial order of 1:2400 Napoleonic ships from Tumbling Dice.  They look good so far.


This is ASN-3 (a 100 gun second rate) just out of the pack.  The cast in masts and ratlines were a surprise, but I do not mind being saved the assembly.

The first rules I will try is Fire as She Bears! which Ross tried at Historicon a while ago.

Like my 10mm Seven Years War these will be imaginations fleets for Bravant and Albion.

Super basing product.

I have been dealing with Pendraken for a good decade now.  Recently, they have extended their product line to include bases, paints , basing materials and other accessories though their main page and under the minibits flag.  So they were the first folks I thought of when I decided to solve an annoying little problem.

Notice the black dice trooping along behind the cavalry squadrons?  Those are casualty tracking dice.   Six hits and a stand come off.  Many systems (such as Blitzkrieg Commander) are often played using this hit tracking method.  And the problem?  Grabbing the casualty dice and rolling them, the dice rolling down a hill, all sort of organizational problems from dice on a tabletop.

So I contacted Leon at Pendraken to see if he could make me a standard-size base with a hole in it for a dice.  But Leon replied with one better -- a technology to add an integrated dice holder to any base.

 At left,  a frame (laser-cut mdf) just out of the pack.  The exterior dimensions are 1cm square.  At the right the frame nestles a 7mm die.

 These have been mounted to bases.  At left, a 15x20mm 2mm mdf base from Pendraken.  Please imagine a casualty figure; they will be in my next order.

At right, adding integrated status info to a Prussian brigade from 1870.

 You can organize the frames any way you want to meet your exact need.  At left, a status marker for  a game with multiple states to track, or where one might need to count hits up to 12.  I find the white a bit gaudy on a table -- but since it's a customization technology I can re-paint it any way I want, or attach the frame to some other material like a plastic bingo counter.

And will the dice roll away?  This one is tilted to about 40 degrees.  Leon is looking at ways to make the frame a bit snugger in the hopes of improving on that value.  I find that the current thickness of the frame is very good for my old fingers to pick up and rotate the die; I have tried stacking the frames two thick, but found that I had trouble picking the die up.  On the other hand, my arthritic fingers present special problems so YMMV on that one.


If you have any questions about these as a product, the Pendraken/Minibits forum is a helpful community with frequent visits from the Pendraken team.

New Toys

I just received from Pendraken a nice set of Seven Years War figures, and as well a set of 20x15mm bases.

As you can see, the base fits nicely into the embrasures of the Vauban  bastions that Ross was kind enough to pass on to me some time ago; I will show off more of it over the next couple of weeks.

The fortress was designed for 15mm figures at a time when 15mm was the top of the head.  They work perfectly with modern 10mm.

With the wheels on, a layer of scribed plasticard for the planks of the platform, and sheet magnet underneath it should be roughly centered in the embrasure.  The crew will mount on the base shown behind the gun and at right angles.

Stuff in the mail

My Pithead order arrived, so I now have enough sdkfz 251's of various marks to fully equip my panzer-grenadier battalion.  The order also included the Grille for their heavy company.

Romania now has its 1st two "home brew" vehicles, a TACAM-60 and a TACAM-R2; both were tank destroyers built using captured Soviet guns and available chassis. I shall order one more of each I think, plus the essential T4s and TAs -- that's Panzer IVs and StugIIIs by their German nomanclature.

Good odds that today I will receive my Pendraken order, including a good supply of lend-lease jeeps to tow Soviet  AT guns and drive commanders around.

Intermediate Report

I'm on a bit of a "put it together" kick this weekend, in anticipation of a good priming opportunity in a couple of weeks.  First, I assembled all of my pending Romanian armor.  I expect a couple more pieces this week, but after months in a drawer they are started.

I've also mounted my long suffering WWII aircraft

I'll have close-ups when the bases are flocked and labelled; they are all 1:300 Heroics and Ros.  I gave up looking for an affordable 1:144 Strumovik.  Lots of JU87s out there, but...

Anyway, I think these will work well over the table.

Likewise my BKA "Floating Tank."  Needs a wash and assemble; the main gun mantlet disappeared (it was in the box, my fault) so I grabbed the turret of a 1:144 T-34/76.  I'll have to check some cammo patterns for this one.  The MG turrets have fiddly little barrels -- this is a real model-makers kit so I am expected to cut them out of wire.  I don't think so.

By the end of the long weekend, I will have a couple more units organized and blogged for the WWII, and may even have some more enlightenment units up.

In real life, number 2 son is now in university residence, so the nest is empty.

Epic Fail!

No planned objective was met this week.  I did, however, progress on another front.  I have organized units for three of my WWII forces, and attached the labels for two of them.

This is what the unit labels look like:

Organized units (on magnetized stands) will go in Belgian biscuit tins labelled to be easily found.











I fear I have been focusing more on WWII than on other projects in the past week.  I have significant forces, but have always planned a few tweaks to finish them off.  Maybe this will be the chance.

Progress Report

The scorecard for this week

Interpolated mass, temperature and luminosity for all stars with complete spectral data	Fail
Complete painting (but not basing since I do not have the rules yet) for a 15mm SF unit.	Fail
Pictures of one 10mm ~SYW unit	Succeed
Revise ground scale for Mars-la-Tour and write "scale" section for rules	Succeed

If I were at work, we would certainly be talking "red project" about now.  So, how did I do in detail?

The star data interpolate is actually getting close.  I have to:

1. Add "extrapolators" to accommodate the end cases for each luminosity class.  Alternatively, I could plug the data to make sure that my extreme ends are covered.  That might actually be simpler.
2. Develop data outside of the Main Sequence.
3. Sort out "R", "N" and similar secondary types - where do they fit in the more-or-less smooth curve of each luminosity class.

We'll leave this one on the books, but I think it will probably be more like two weeks.

No paint touched the SF platoon, but I did magnetize, label and photograph a 10mm German infantry battalion for BKC.  This project will get a website when I have some non-fascist units to include.  I really have quite a large army, but this is the 1st explicitly organized battalion.

I wrote one (really easy) rules section and blogged the Bravant artillery.  The "document 10mm unit" target is a gimme until I run out of labelled units; still, I should do something more entertaining with these lads.

I also found yet more forgotten FPW figures.

So for next week:

• Code complete and tested interpolator for Main Sequence only.
• Finish painting an incomplete unit for some army - I have got to get the FPW French going along.
• Catch up labeling on existing Bravant units and blog both another unit and some kind of army list.
• Write another section of the Mars la Tour rules.

Mixed Success

Results for this week:

Objective	Result
interpolated mass, temperature and luminosity for all stars with complete spectral data	Fail
a starting coat on my first 15mm SF platoon	Succeed
pictures of one 10mm ~SYW unit	Succeed

On the other hand:

• Close investigation and new decisions on the Mars-la-Tour rules including several posts.

I'd say moderately successful -- its been an annoying busy weekend.


Targets for next week:

Interpolated mass, temperature and luminosity for all stars with complete spectral data

Complete painting (but not basing since I do not have the rules yet) for a 15mm SF unit.

Pictures of one 10mm ~SYW unit

Revise ground scale for Mars-la-Tour and write "scale" section for rules.

Oh, My, more figures!

Well, the good news is that I have made decent progress so far - still one day off left and I have got a base coat on my SF lads, posted some cavalry thoughts on the FPW blog and started a blog for my enlightenment imagine-nations.  Just some programming to go.

The other news is far from bad news, but I have just discovered a complete unopened shipment from Pendraken including 3 lovely tumbril carts from the ECW range and the SYW carriage, Wolfe and Montcalm from the FIW range and lots of other command packs.  Good stuff, but shows the work required to get the ~SYW force to where in deserves to be.

I also remembered that I have some 1:600 RCW river warfare ships I have done nothing with -- this is not a retired project, I will get them going at some point.

I do think I need to mull over my objectives and sort them out so I can know when I get there.  No wargame army is ever really "done" but I can set some "phase one" targets.

Trying to make sense of too many projects

I now officially have way to many projects in the air. In order of most recent effort I have

1. 15mm SF for Ambush Alley's "Tomorrow's War" - a slow project since the game isn't out yet.  As I finish units and paint them up, I will blog the results and once the game is released I will post AARs.  
2. Yet Another Future History.  Currently this project is mostly software development; it has been absorbing most of my time for May and June.  It has the virtues of cheapness -- it's just software, and I am writing it.  It will will go forward and still at a good pace, but I want to get back from it being 100% the only project.
3. My space fleet.  This is sort of on hold until I have a bit more future history for the ships to do battle in.
4. Mars La Tour on 6x4.  Needs to move from hand-wavy speculation to ready-to-play troopers.  Decisions and painting required.
5. My 10mm Not-the-Seven-Years-War armies  This is actually my most recently used force, but aside from a few photobucket albums is not really documented.  It is part way though labeling, and has half finished units.
6. My 10mm late war WWII East Front/Great Patriotic War.  Pithead is about to release the key Romanians  tank destroyers I need (that being the wargamer's version of the word need), Pendraken now has Red Army Men in pilotka hats (because helmets are not truly manly), and the force deserves to be organized into formations and labelled as such.  Its a good sized force for BKC that has seen some good use and should see more.
7. My 15mm Renaissance - Lovely figures, mostly painted by Ross.  They have unfinished bases, and many are not even based yet.  Shame!!!
8. My 6mm SF for FWC.  Honest to God, the figures are here somewhere.
9. 28mm ECW - at least one regiment.

So, how to push some sense out of this? I mean, so many lovely figures and cool ideas; so little time!  Lets set a target, on a weekly basis.  We will try this:

Each week I will:

• Paint one unit to completion for one of the FPW, ~SYW, 15mm SF or East Front.
• Document two completed units for one of the above; including labeling the bases.
• Complete one significant step in programming the star map for my future history.
• Write one rule for Mars la Tour - note, however, that I allow that a single rule may be rewritten many times.

The week will end when I go to bed the night before the first regular working day of the next week.  I will record progress here and also post longer-term time-activated plans here.  And then we will see how I make progress, and you can all mock my lack of it.

This is a runt week, so my objectives will be interpolated mass, temperature and luminosity for all stars with complete spectral data, a starting coat on my first 15mm SF platoon, and pictures of one 10mm ~SYW unit.