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Nice. I'm on a DBA high as I'm planning my Multi-Mongol Madness: I'm planning to pick up a Timurid DBA army, and then add enough elements to also cover Ilkhanid and Mongol Conquest. So I'll get three armies of blood crazy Central Asian warriors in one. I'm getting them to have a historical enemy to my Late Crusaders, an army shock full of Hospitallers:    For people unsure about the size of 15mm, there's some average sized 15mm (Mirliton) next to one of the older, smallish space orks. I also have a Gallic army that I don't really like that much. Armies with mostly Warbands are difficult to use against most enemies. They were easy to paint though.   My first army was Late Carthaginian. It's actually a really nice army with tons of choices and many different elements. And you got to love an army with elephants.   One interesting part of DBA is that every army has a camp, but you are free to make it however you want. I made some quick generic camps for our first tournament, but for my Mongols I plan on doing something specific to the army. There's some really cool camps out there, but this is what I came up with on a limited time schedule:    I'll happily answer questions about manifacturers of ancient and medieval miniatures since I browse miniatures far too much on my spare time.
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Jan 2, 2010 00:35
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FirstCongoWar posted:So tell me more about 15mm historical manufacturers! EDIT; now with corresponding images  Actually, both my Gauls and my Carthaginians were Corvus Belli boxed DBA armies. I found them to be a good and cheap way to get started, since a local supplier had them. Corvus Belli have great detail but they can be a bitch to work with because they are made from a very hard metal and have quite a lot of flash. I always pin my cavalry and using a pin vice to drill in Corvus Belli metal is a bitch. But they look nice.  My Crusaders are from Mirliton. I have only good things to say about them: almost no flash, and they were a breeze to paint. Mirliton have mostly Italian medieval armies, but medieval european miniatures are incredibly versatile. I've been eyeing their Russians too, they are super nice.  My Mongols will be mostly from Alain Touller. Bring your French, because the site is only very partially translated. I can't vouch for quality yet, but this far the only bad things I have heard about them is that they used to have lovely response time before they went online and that their horses were kinda lovely before they resculpted them.  I'm planning to get some artillery for my Mongols and some camp items from Museum Miniatures. Yes, the homepage is pretty... retro and the miniatures are hit-or-miss, but I think their extra stuff like tents and carts are good and their trebuchets are excellent. Some monks and pilgrims will make for a nice camp for my Crusaders, too.  My main opponent have bought his first armies (Greek hoplites and Alexander Macedonian) from Xyston. Xyston sculps are just excellent, though they sort of cheat since their miniatures are much bigger than most 15mm brands. So be careful if you plan on mixing them in your own army. Xyston are very heavily focused on Classical Greek armies.  Now he is picking up some Arabs to kill my crusaders from Khurasan Miniatures. They started as a company doing uncommon armies from the Caucasus area, so if you are tired of Romans fighting Greeks they are worth a look. Can't say anything about quality since I haven't seen them in person yet, but they have a good reputation as far as I know. All of these manufacturers put out DBA packs so they are "beginner friendly". lilljonas fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Jan 2, 2010 |
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Jan 2, 2010 01:14
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No Pun Intended posted:Osprey produce military reference books that pretty much cover every subject imaginable, from tactics to uniforms, equipment and vehicles. Osprey is like historical player crack. I have 9 Osprey books on my samurai alone.  Osprey books are a perfect substitute for 40K Codexes, with all the background and how to paint the army in a reasonably sized and priced book. Perfect when you want to know just enough about an army without slugging through something with an academic scope.
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Jan 2, 2010 02:00
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Danger - Octopus! posted:
Nice tanks, are they from GHQ? I'd love to try CWC sometimes since T-72 and T-55 are my favourite tanks. 
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Jan 2, 2010 02:05
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quote:Where does one get 10mm AWI Cav? What kind? My first look at Old Glory's website and I find both British and American Lt. Dragoons in 10mm. EDIT: Pendraken have British dragoons on their website too. Here I'd like to pimp Madaxeman's Wargaming Site, which is excellent when you want to find out what available producers there are for a specific era for a specific scale. I use it a lot when I have a period in mind first and then want to find out where I can get the miniatures. In this case it is less useful as their 10mm section is mostly about WW2, but for 15mm manufacturers it is great with good reviews and lots of pictures. EDIT2; you might want to check out these TMP discussions: http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=175148 http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=168460 http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=163600 http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=160379 The pendraken sculpter posts on TMP and in some of those threads, and it seems that they plan on adding more cavalry further on. There's also some talk about whether or not mixing OG and Pendraken is a good idea. There's tons more of threads on it, so just do a search on "10mm AWI". quote:Could you post some pictures of 1mm miniatures??! He probably meant 2mm, which is the smallest size for land warfare I know of. It is ridiculously small.  2mm Indians next to an AA battery quote:plastic multipart historicals? Most have already been mentioned, but Warlord Games also do plastics, mostly Celts and Romans AFAIK. quote:Warhammer Historical series of historic wargames? I only play the napoleonic naval rule set, Trafalgar, but I'd say they are very friendly to the player entering historicals from WHFB/40K since so much of the mechanics are similar to those games. Not counting the movement rules of Trafalgar you're left with mostly "4+ to hit with modifiers" and saving throws, meaning that someone who has played a game of 40K will pick it up quickly. Warhammer Ancient Battles is pretty much 4th ed WHFB with some more detailed formation rules. Fat Twitter Man posted:Anyone familiar with Field of Glory? Also, how would I go about getting DBA or DBM rules in the U.S.? I'll do a writeup on FoG later, but here's my short take on it. I'll mostly compare it to DBA because those are the two systems for historical land battles that I actually play when not at participation games at conventions or something like that. As mentioned before, FoG is much more granular than DBA. Where DBA has 12 bases, a 600pts starter army of FoG is likely to have around 40-60 bases. That's a big step up in how ambitious it is just to get started. I got 2 Carthaginian DBA army boxes and a Gallic DBA box, and I still had to pick up more spearmen, slingers and cavalry to be able to field a starter army. This doesn't just mean more money but also more time. Even if I now have almost the entire army I must proxy a handful of bases so I can't field an entire painted FoG army after a year of playing the game. FoG also takes more time to play, since it is more detailed. You don't just take off casualties or retreat like in DBA, instead you are more likely to slowly lose morale due to attrition. You move to disrupted, then fragmented and finally broken, and you have to keep generals around to improve morale and all that. You have more stats since your weaponry, armour and training has an effect on combat. There's more bases and more variables to keep track of. Now, this is not neccessarily a bad thing. I like FoG, even if I don't get to play it as often as DBA. But it is a completely different game. It's for those days you want to spend an entire evening pushing large groups of metal men on a big board. DBA has the advantage of not taking either that much space nor time, which means you can squeeze in a game on a regular gaming night while waiting for some guys to finish their Railroad Tycoon game. The big number of necessary troops and the time it takes to paint a FoG army means that I think DBA is much more beginner friendly, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't touch FoG if you are not a veteran. Hell, if you go to some of the cheaper companies like Black Hat you can get a FoG starter army for as little as 50 quid, which is what? Two and a half regiment boxes of GW plastics? My take on FoG is that it is very convenient to combine with DBA, especially using the allied rules. Make a Alexander Macedonian DBA army. Make a Thracian DBA army. Now you have two armies that can battle each other, so you can have an opponent borrow your army and you can play DBA. Now buy some more pikes, and you can field a small FoG army of Alexander Macedonian with Thracian allies. Or you can just play DBA those days you want a quicker game. If you go with Carthiginians like me you might end up with many different DBA armies being fieldable from a single FoG army, such as Carthaginians, Gauls and Spanish. If you are in the states, I think Old Glory 15mm could be a good way to jump into FoG directly, since they have some nice starter armies starting as low as 70 dollar. Keep in mind though that almost all manufacturers sell their miniatures without bases, so if you want to get cracking at historicals you need to either buy some ready made bases or make your own out of plasticard or something. Regarding your second question, I'd say that I'd be cheeky and just try out DBA using WADBAG and getting the army lists online by looking at the army boxed sets available, people's painting blogs or the DBA Oline website. If you like it, then you can support the makers by buying the actual rules. Just now in December it was proclaimed that a 3.0 version of DBA is planned, but not when. You can buy both DBA and DBM from warweb.com and there's always some books out on e-bay. Pick the 2004 version of DBA, not the one from 1995. You'll know it from the full colour cover. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 13:57 on Jan 2, 2010 |
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Jan 2, 2010 12:26
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I think a link to The Miniatures Page in the OP is in order. TMP is the Internet Hub of historicals. It has links to current auctions on e-bay, news from pretty much all rules and miniature makers and several discussion boards for every period. Many rules writers, sculpters and store owners post there. It is also a perfect symbol for the 13 year lag in webdesign that the historical hobby is plagued with. It is ugly and the discussion pages are very often down for maintenance. But beneath that veneer of crappiness there are dozens of history nerds for each period who can answer pretty much any question, no matter if it is a scale comparison between two manufacturers or a question about proper uniforms for your selected Soviet tank company on September 17th 1942.
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Jan 2, 2010 14:17
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Lord Commissar posted:Done. I'll do Trafalgar later on if there are nobody else jumping at a chance to do it.
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Jan 2, 2010 15:56
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Playing historicals on a budget: pick up a free rulebook or use WADBAG. Buy a box of 1/72 plastic miniatures. Now you got a game for five pounds. Anyone out there playing with 1/72 (20mm) plastics? I haven't tried myself because I don't like the soft plastic ordinarily used and the mediocre detail, but it's hard to find a cheaper way to put out a sizeable army. http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Index.aspx is the go-to site for 1/72 plastics.
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Jan 3, 2010 10:47
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I can totally see the danger of removing much of the financial hurdle for just getting more and more figures and leave them unpainted in the closet. But you could get about two battlegroups for a FoG out of most Zvezda kits. Anyhow, my Mongol Madness is taking a turn and I don't know if I like it. Turned out the DBA 2.0 changes made the Golden Horde army less flexible, with lots and lots and lots of light cavalry. I'll take this chance to demonstrate how a DBA army list looks. Or three: Mongol Conquest 1206-1266 1x3Cv (Gen), 2x3Cv, 8x2LH, 1x2LH or Art Golden Horde / Successors 1251-1556 1x3Cv (Gen), 3x3Cv, 6x2LH, 1x3Bw, 1x4Bw or 4Cb or 3Wb or 2LH Early and Late nomadic mongols 1x3Cv (Gen), 3x3Cv or 2LH, 8x2LH The actual lists in the book also includes a list of historical enemies, how aggressive your army is (i.e. how likely they are to be defenders) and what kind of terrain they fight in when they defend. But this is the gist of it. Take the Mongol Conquest: First you have which era your army covers. Then you have 1x3Cv (Gen). This means that you have one base of cavalry as your general, and that they are represented by three horses on the base. Then I have two bases of Cavalry with three horses on each base, 8 bases of Light Horse with two horses on each base, and finally I get to choose whether to pick another base of Light Horse or a piece of artillery. The number of models on each base doesn't really matter in DBA in 99.9% of the cases. However, using two horses for Light Cavalry and three for Cavalry and Knights makes it much easier to keep track of a steppe nomad army. As I understand it it does make a difference whehter you have 3 or 4 crossbowmen on a base in DBM though, which is more why you have that number in the first place. Now, in 1.0 the mongols got to choose to have 4 bases of spears or bows or light horses after you got all the mandatory light horses. Now they can't. And the problem in a rock-paper-scissor type of game is that Light Horse is sort of the wet paper bag, extremely manouverable but there's just very few things you can expect them to actually kill. There's also many things that can ruin your day, like bow armed infantry or massed cavalry attacks. So of all these, I instinctively prefer the Golden Horde list, as it includes 6 mandatory light horse but have one base of bows, some heavier cavalry support, and the option of an additional bow/crossbow, warband or light horse element. Here's the swiss army mongol part: by getting 11 bases of light horse, 4 bases of cavalry, 2 bases of bows, 1 artillery and 1 warband, I can field all available options of all three of these armies. Add some auxilia and it also covers the Ilkhanid. Add psiloi (skirmishers) and an elephant, and I also have a Timurid army. And since the bulk of the army is light horse with only two horses on each base, I have five armies covered with only... eh, 35 mounted and 16 infantry. The bad change is that the older list could field an actual infantry battle line, to keep the enemy locked up while the light cav causes problems on the flanks. The Spears could deal with bows, which are deadly against light cavalry, and they could have some hope to keep blades or pikes busy for a little while. Bows could deal with enemy knights. Now, I have to be mostly Light Cav no matter what. I'll likely be the attacker since I'm aggressive Mongols, the opponent will get to pick the terrain. If they have a terrain option with lots of difficult terrain it will really gently caress up a Light Horse army. The Golden Horde army would have at least some other tricks up their sleeves, and the artillery of the Mongol Conquest list can be useful to break a standoffish situation. But on the other hand I also have the comedy option of just fielding a general and 11 light horse, and blame all my losses on fielding only light horse. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 11:43 on Jan 3, 2010 |
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Jan 3, 2010 11:35
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Cakefool posted:Could you explain the abbreviations please? Sure, I ran through one of them in my post but I can do the rest. At first look a DBA army list looks like algebra, but they are actually extremely simple. Cv is cavalry. That means everything that isn't covered in tons of armour (those are Kn, Knights) or fight in loose, harassing skirmish formations (Light Horse). LH is Light Horse. Quick and agile cavalry like Numidian horsemen, Mongol and Parthian horse archers, those types. Art is artillery. Early bombard cannons, mangonels, catapults, the lot. Bw is bow, Lb is lonbow and Cb is Crossbow. In DBA those are exacly the same. These guys can actually shoot at things not in base to base contact, unlike javelin men or slingers etc. These are instead Ps, psiloi (cy-loi). Rule of thumb is that units relying on massed shooting in thick formations and things like pikes in the ground to ward of enemy attackers are Bows or Crossbows, while dispersed skirmishers relying on speed and manouverability to defend themselves are Psiloi. Wb are warband, your average battle frenzied guy with a huge weapon who likes to charge things. The rest of the elements that are not in my armies: Spear (Sp) generic guy with a stick and usually a shield Pike (Pk) guys with longer sticks than Sp Blade (Bd) disciplined guys who will gently caress you up in close combat, like vikings, legionaires Psiloi (Ps) skirmishers with bows, javelins or slings Horde (Hd) unwashed mob of people, peasants, pilgrims etc. War Wagon(WWg) very rare, mostly used by Hussites. An armoured cart full of guns. Auxilia (Aux) good unit in difficult terrain, mediocre at best otherwise Litter (Lt) very rare, guy being carried around Elephants (El) Heavy Chariots (HCh) Light Chariots (LCh) Scythed Chariots (SCh) Very rare but absolutely bananas against things like Warbands Camelry (Cm) Light Camelry (Cm) Camels are just like their horse versions, but are on steroids against ordinary mounted units. Those are all the units to keep track of, and many (camelry, chariots) are just slight variations. So to read a DBA army list you just check these elements. The number before the element abbreviation is just how many models are on the base. In very rare cases you might have, for example, 6Kn instead of 3Kn. Usually you only have 3 models on the base for knights, but in this case you get to use a base that is twice as deep with twice as many models. This is BAD since you are easier to flank, and if you are repelled you retreat one base depth so you get shoved that much further away. If you get shoved into another base you get destroyed, so that's another reason this is bad. But in 99% of the time this number with be the "normal" one and doesn't matter. So 4x3cv means four bases with the standard number of three cavalry on each base. When you have options, they are of three kinds. You have things like "3x3cv or 3x2LH". This means you have three bases with either all cav or all light horse. Then you have "3x3Cv or 2LH". Then you can freely mix these three bases into everthing from all cavalry to all light horse or something in between. Finally, there are rare cases where you get two choose two loadouts, say "3x4Bw and 2x4Sp or 4x3Kn and 1x6Kn". In this fictional example you would then either have 3 bases of bows and two bases of spearmen, or you would have 4 ordinary bases of knights and one base of knights that is twice as big as normal. Some armies like Medieval French get quite complicated with lots of options, but most armies are like the Mongol ones listed above with just a swap available here and there. I think the average is about 14-15 bases to include all available options. EDIT: checked fanaticus, and I was right on the money with the French: quote:The absolute largest DBA 2.0 army in terms of figures required to field all options has to be the Medieval French 1346-1418 AD (IV/64b), which requires 29 elements (including six elements of dismounting knights, 5x 5Wb and 2x 7Hd) for a grand total of 116 figures. Credit: Cyril Walker Here you have another example where the number before the element type actually matters, since ordinarily a Warband (Wb) would be 3 models on a base with a 20mm depth, but 5WB would require a bigger base. All in all I find this system quite elegant because instead of having an entire Codex or army list it's just a short line of text. So if a friend says he is picking up a new army and I have no idea what it is or how it plays, he can just say "oh, it's 6x3Kn/4Bd, 2x4Cb, 3x3Aux, 1x4Sp or Art" and then I know the entire army. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 13:29 on Jan 3, 2010 |
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Jan 3, 2010 13:13
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Serotonin posted:Sounds interesting. DBA always seemed a little too rocks papers scissors for my liking, and very biased towards tournament play. Mind you its quick to paint an army up for it, you dont need too many figures so thats a bonus. Indeed, and I think you should look at it more as a quickly played boardgame actually. Not that it doesn't convey the tabletop wargame feel of armies meeting or that real life strategy doesn't work. But the small board, the fact that both players have the same number of units and the set rules for each unit kind of makes it feel like playing chess. It's just that the other player have four bishops and 5 rooks, you have no queen and far too many pawns and there's woods and hills in the middle of the board. Oh, and you roll a die every turn to see how many pieces you get to move, which can completely screw you over. It's not a game for you if you can't laugh off losing because of bad luck with the dice.
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Jan 3, 2010 13:34
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Flames of War help please. So I'll be getting a ton of German infantry that I'll try to shape into something fieldable. I'm about to order some bases from Litko Systems anyway, so I thought I would pick up some FoW bases in advance. Now, I don't know much about the basing system. Litko have Small, Medium and Large bases available. Am I right that the medium base is the usual one for infantry? I've seen snipers on very small bases, but I have no idea of what the large bases are for. Will I have any use of these, or should I just pick up a huge bunch of medium bases?
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Jan 3, 2010 19:09
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Iron Squid posted:I saw the post above about Ambush Alley. For 1980's Afghans and Soviets in 28mm check out Eureka Miniatures: http://eurekamin.com.au/index.php?cPath=87_150 If you want 28mm Second Gulf War stuff then you can get lots of modern miniatures from The Assault Group, they are sort of GW-ish in proportions: http://www.theassaultgroup.co.uk/store/home.php?cat=40 If you decide to go with plastics there are tons of plastic model kit makers who do moderns in 1/72 or 1/35, both tanks and infantry. Think Airfix, Italieri, Tamiya, Dragon, Miniart, those kinds of companies. If you want smaller scale and field lots of tanks attacking each other, then you might want to check out Cold War Commander. GHQ has itty bitty tanks in 1/285 http://www.ghqmodels.com/store/military-models-modern-micro-armour.html Battlefield Evolution used to have rules and pre-painted miniatures if I'm not remembering wrong. They sort of flopped on the miniature side but have been revived on the rules side, including a modern zombie apocalypse ruleset. Rules are similar to Starship Troopers, which I haven't tried but heard good things about. Miniatures can still be found on e-bay etc. http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/series.php?qsSeries=47 lilljonas fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Jan 4, 2010 |
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Jan 4, 2010 06:05
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Lord Commissar posted:Alright now that I think I've got basing sorted, I'm curious if anyone uses movement trays for historicals, and if so, what to use. I just use very heavy cardstock. A thin ridge of balsa wood on top and the models keep in place. The bad thing is that even thick cardstock will bend a bit when painted. Very thick plasticard would be better, but there is nowhere to buy it around here. That is for WHFB/WAB style gaming with 20mm bases in big units. In FoG I rarely have more than 6 elements in a battlegroup, so not much use for a movement tray.
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Jan 4, 2010 16:24
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Gah, just spent a hundred bucks on bases and magnets. Granted one third of them are not for me, and they will be enough for several projects, but still. But all in all that is nothing compared to the cost of a 28mm samurai army:  I need to take some good pics of them one day. Lord Commissar: a friend of mine picked up Old Glory 15mm Germans, and they are super cheap. However, they come in packages of 50(!) each, so even after making an infantry company he will have enough troops left to dump the rest on me for another company. I'll post them as soon as I have painted them so you can compare them, I guess they are crappier quality due to the price but I'm not sure. At least it makes for cheap cannon fodder. http://www.oldgloryminiatures.com/categories.asp?cat=485 They have tanks also, but I haven't made a price comparison. For tanks you might check out Skytrex too: http://www.skytrex.com/ They have a 10% sale ending today.' EDIT: quick price comparison, 3 tigers: Battlefront, through The War Store, 30 bucks OG 26 bucks Skytrex 23 pound So OG is a bit cheaper but not that much, might depend on what vehicle it is too. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Jan 4, 2010 |
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Jan 4, 2010 18:34
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Lord Commissar posted:Excellent! Because they live in the past when people just had paper catalogues with names and product numbers and people didn't give that much poo poo about how things looked. Historical gamers give all kinds of poo poo to GW, but the truth is that the leaps and bounds in how good miniatures look would be impossible without GW. So you are stuck with GIS and trying to figure out if the bad miniatures you are bound to see are a result of a crappy paint job or crappy sculpts. Here's a pretty cool blog with mixed Battlefront, Old Glory and Battle Honours, they seem to mix well enough for me. http://saskminigamer.blogspot.com/2008/04/15mm-ww2-deutches-afrika-korps.html
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Jan 4, 2010 18:53
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I've been stuck in a painting rut for a while, not being able to get myself to paint any of my 28mm stuff. So I took out some really old 15mm north african spearmen. While they really show their age with the single poses and all, the lack of detail meant that they painted up real fast and they make up a whole battlegroup for my FoG Carthaginians. 15mm can be very forgiving at an arm's length. I haven't finished the basing of them yet, neither for these Corvus Belli Gallic cavalry.  Towering over them is my second attempt at painting a 54mm miniature, this one is from Pegaso who do just insanely detailed miniatures. For the first time I tried shading skin with purple, and I'd be damned if it doesn't work absolutely great. 
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Jan 4, 2010 23:41
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Warhammer Historicals: Trafalgar Trafalgar is a naval ruleset in the Napoleonic era, 1775-1815. The rules cover naval conflicts in the Great Lakes between Britain and the USA, between the Barbary pirates and the USA, Baltic warfare between Russia and Sweden and finally the main theater: the Napoleonic War, culminating at the Battle of Trafalgar where British naval superiority was secured for a century. The system is very much a Warhammer system so if you have played 40K or Fantasy you will quickly figure things out. The main difference from the mainstream warhammer rules, what gives it that naval feel, are the restricted movements and the fact that you attack with broadsides. This truly makes it a game about manouvering and planning ahead. Battlefleet Gothic veterans will immediately know what I am talking about, even thought I would say that it is even more important in Trafalgar due to your armament being limited to broadsides. When you can't shoot forwards you better get good at turning around at the right time.  Trafalgar in 1/2400 scale The rules are, IMHO, best suited for skirmishes with 2-6 ships per side, especially when fielding the hardier ships of the line. The order in which you move and shoot is depending on your position in relation to the wind. By manouvering into a favourable wind you gain the initiative. However, this is made difficult by many factors: first of all you have to move your full movement rate every turn, even if you can try to break or speed up by changing sails. You have a very limited ability to turn, and even before attempting a turn you will move straight forward due to inertia. And you better bring your lucky dice if you ever end up sailing straight into the wind, because that can tear your masts off... The second big difference from a IGOYOUGO system is that you can always pause either your own move or the enemy's move to fire reaction fire. The penalty for not waiting to the shooting phase is a -1 to hit on a D6, where you are usually at 4+ or 5+ to hit. This makes all kinds of nasty things like a driveby by angry French sailors possible.  Crossing the T with cutout ships If there is anything to complain about, it is that criticals (sixes on to hit roll) really are the way that you win games. A big ship might be able to take 20 ordinary hits before being disabled, while a lucky critical can take it out. It is also extremly easy to make the other ship start burning, which unable them from shooting next turn. So sometimes you get an annoying battle of attrition where the burning ship keep on putting out the fire just to be turned on fire again. There are also some minor rules that you are better off adjusting such as making the degrees of raking shots (shots coming in from the front or back, which do extra critical damage) less generous. The British are also REALLY overpowered. But aside from that, I think it is a very good start for someone who is new to naval wargaming. I say that as a person who never played naval wargames before, and who always considered Napoleonics to be one of the less interesting periods. The book is very well laid out lots of historical notes, including a long bit on the naval part of the Napoleonic War, and of course a campaign on Trafalgar itself. There are full army lists for Netherlands, Portugal, Spanish, British, French, USA, Privateers, Russians and Swedes. The book is full colour with lots of pictures with guides for how to paint the ships, how to do rigging and how ships worked during this era. The book pretty much assumes you know nothing about the topic, but not in a condescending way, which makes me think that it is a perfect starting point for a sweetwater landcrab Admiral like me.  The rules are made with 1/1200 scale in mind, but there is nothing stopping you from using 1/2400 ships either. Remember though that the relatively complex movement rules means that large navy combat would take a long time to resolve. Even an engagement with just 6-8 ships can take two hours or more, especially if you put out a small island or two to hunt each other around in a Benny Hill manner. For miniatures, I can recommend Langton Miniatures and GHQ. Langton is a bit more expensive, but have by far the largest range with everything from the biggest ship-of-the-line to tiny cannonboats and even dockside scenery. Langton also have starter sets of four ships which is plenty enough for an entertaining game. GHQ on the other hand is cheaper with a smaller range, but have far from bad miniatures.  One of my Spanish ships Finally, putting together ships with full rigging and ratlines is extremely fidgety business. Don't attempt this is you get puzzled by plastic sets of space marines. Also, each ship can be pretty expensive, especially if you include bells and whistles like resin bases, banners and ratlines. On the other hand you can do well with just 4-5 ships, which means that you can put more effort into each one.  my fleet being put together lilljonas fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Jan 5, 2010 |
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Jan 5, 2010 00:34
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Lord Commissar posted:Haha I just looked at Pegaso's website, and they list the American Revolution figures under Old West. It's all the same, yahoo's with guns and lassos. And indians. They wouldn't call it the French and Indian War if it wasn't in the Old West. And 54mm can be fun, and it can be intimidating. Less so if you don't choose something as stupidly detailed as a samurai in full armour, and if you don't look at Pegaso's site or Military Modeling and compare yourself with those guys. They are just sick. 
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Jan 5, 2010 00:46
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Lord Commissar posted:Added to your section of the OP. The Lone Ranger is a costume drama about brotherly love during the tumultuous American Revolution. No but really, I think you would be surprised by how little most Europeans are taught about American history, especially pre-WW2. I'd be surprised in you could find a single Swedish higschool student at the average school who knows the difference between the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.
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Jan 5, 2010 01:06
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Serotonin posted:
No poo poo. Even for periods that I don't plan to ever play. Between reading magazines with mixed articles like Wargames Illustrated, looking at blogs and forums and simply just looking up weird names from online stores (Ghuz? Who the hell were the Ghuz? Off to Wikipedia), I have a far better general overview of world history than any non-player I know. It also does wonders for your geography. I listen to several historical podcasts while working, and they are good for both learning more and to get inspiration when they cover your army. One everyone should check out is Hardcore History, and Dan Carlin's coverage of the Punic Wars and the WWII Ostfront are especially good. BBC History is always good quality but usually not about military history. Finally, nothing beats the details you get by slogging through an actual history course from something like The Teaching Company. For miniatures, Meeples and Miniatures are a bit hit or miss but their Views From the Veranda episodes are always good. D6 Generation covers a little bit of historicals now and then, but they got really hooked on Wild West historical games and have quite a lot of materials about it. Anyone have anything good that I should add to my listening queue so my boring work days pass faster? EDIT; to add to my Trafalgar review, that game ruined Uncharted Seas for me. I was introduced to Uncharted Seas after Trafalgar, and in comparison it just felt dumb. She ships were easy to stear, there were little need to plan your attack course since most ships shot just as well forwards, you could shoot at all sides at once without any repercussions, and the wind really didn't matter. And the amazing thing is that Trafalgar is not that much more complex, it just have clever rules that makes you feel more like commanding actual sailing ships that behave like, you know, sailing ships, not tanks. So now I can't play Uncharted Seas without being irritated and mumbling "well I couldn't do that if it was Trafalgar, but..." all the time. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 12:54 on Jan 5, 2010 |
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Jan 5, 2010 12:43
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BeigeJacket posted:lilJonas, have you played multiplayer Trafalgar? I've played a few 1vs1 games and whilst it was a blast I think it would work best with teams, as the game system seems to reward big sweeping moves and grand tactics, whilst simultaneously needing a fair bit of attention to keep track of all the damage suffered by the different ships. I haven't tried multiplayer as in multiple fleet, but I have played several games where we introduce beginners by letting them either comandeer half the ships on one side, or where we play the fleet as a team. It worked very well, but I can imagine that having two actual fleets would be very nice too. However we are only two players in the club who have any ships, and seeing us do the rigging hasn't made the rest of the guys less scared. I use resin bases from Rod Langton. He has three different sizes: small bases for sloops and such minor ships, larger for ship of the lines and one that is a tad biggger than that for first rate ships. 40x65mm (frigates) 40x75mm (3rd rates) 40x85mm (3-deckers) 20x50mm (unrated) It works well IMHO, with enough room for them not to feel crowded. He has a naval system of his own that I haven't tried, but base sizes doesn't matter that much in Trafalgar anyway. Who plays with mortar ships? Skytrex is weird since their website is designed like a telecom or engineering company. First time I went there I thought I had entered the wrong URL. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 14:10 on Jan 5, 2010 |
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Jan 5, 2010 14:02
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Lord Commissar posted:Added this to the FAQ: This Wikipedia article also happens to be very misinformative. If you think "oh, I play 28mm miniatures, I should pick up some sweet 1/72 kits", be prepared to be dissapointed. 1/72 is actually closer to 20mm than even 25mm, and old scool 25mm are tiny dwarves compared to what we commonly call 28mm. I have no idea why that article isnt' changed. Photo example:  From left to right: 15mm, 1/72, GW style 28mm, 1/35. As you can see, 1/72 is not that much bigger than 15mm, to the point where 1/72 kits of houses etc. can be used for 15mm. But a 1/72 kit will look miniscule even next to non-heroic old style 25mm. The only entry in that list that is worth a drat is that 1/100 and 15mm is close since you can get 1:100 aircrafts for FoW and such games for a cheap alternative for Battlefront kits. EDIT: Traditional Games > TG Discussion > Historicals: Sperging about scales
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Jan 7, 2010 16:21
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Lord Commissar posted:That's not so much Wikipedia's fault as it is the fault of manufacturers not sticking to standards. The article on wikipedia mentions the disparity, in fact, and references 28mm in several different scales. It is Wikipedia's fault for saing "1/72 = 28mm", which is just objectively wrong. I took a "proper" 1/72 model I had lying around, and from foot to top of head it was about 21, 22mm. There's no way you can stretch that to 25mm, even less non-heroic 28mm. Add to that the fact that mm scales are measured from foot to eye level, and you land pretty square on 1/72 = 20mm "proper, non-heroic" scale. It's not a matter of manufacturers not sticking to standards or calling their scales something they arent, it's jus that a human in 1/72 is 20-22 mm tall.
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Jan 7, 2010 16:57
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Lord Commissar posted:Well, it -is- wikipedia and you -are- spergin' about it, so you could always edit that in yourself. Just 'cause ahm spergin' don't no mean ah care nuff to go to edit no wikipedia.  On a less polemic note, are there anyone doing 6mm out there? I've thought of the idea of making two opposite 6mm DBA armies for a one-off project one day, since it wouldn't be that expensive to do such a small army in 6mm. It is cheap, but is it fun to paint 6mm? EDIT: and after all this wikipedia page is correct, and points out that 20mm is a good fit for 1/72 kits. So it's wikipedia against wikipedia! But really much of the misunderstandings are because people think mm are counted from base to eyes, not top of head, combined with scale creep and variations between companies. Final verdict is always a comparison with miniatures side by side. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_figure_%28gaming%29 lilljonas fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Jan 7, 2010 |
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Jan 7, 2010 17:32
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children overboard posted:Thank you for posting this. They're so cute The best painted 2mm I've seen can be found here: http://www.angelfire.com/games4/bobsgames/tiny_warriors.htm   And some really tempting 6mm 
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Jan 7, 2010 21:15
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No Pun Intended posted:Except the aircraft Battlefront sell are 1:144. Yeah, but 1:100 is close enough for you to use instead of the "official" ones. I'm not completely sure but I'd guess their choice of 1:144 is because the planes will be zooming around above the battlefield anyway, so strict scale adherence isn't that important between air and land. I've seen lots of people use 1:100 die cast metal airplane toys for FoW.
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Jan 8, 2010 10:11
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Lord Commissar posted:I suppose if you figure the planes are "way up there", going with a smaller scale isn't too bad. Makes for cheaper planes that are easier to pack away and bring along, too. It is a nifty thing when they won't be standing side by side to the land models anyway, so the model scale difference don't matter as much as if it was between infantry and tanks.
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Jan 8, 2010 12:49
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Cakefool posted:These look like the MSPaint spraybrush. Got any crazy-rear end closeups of 2mm stuff?  2mm is the perfect opportunity to let your freehand drawing truly enrich your banners (it's supposed to read "SPQR" if you can't see it)
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Jan 8, 2010 23:50
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I just ordered 96 infantry dudes.  Ok so it's 6mm so that is one 5 quid blister and I'm just trying it out
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Jan 9, 2010 18:15
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Serotonin posted:Painting for the first time since my daughter was born 10 weeks old. On an average, how much time does it take for you to paint 6mm stuff? How many colours do you use? Is there any reason to do techniques from larger scales such as highlighting, washing etc? I'm trying to figure out if 96 baccus samurai will be done in a week or a year.
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Jan 9, 2010 22:47
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Serotonin posted:Hmm. Good questions. Thanks for the tips, and those Napoleonics look great! I'm thinking of doing someting similar by using a uniform colour with highlights on the main colour and not bother too much with the details. I'll probably try to make them look a bit less disciplined than a 19th century battleline by cutting the miniatures off the strips and placing them more randomly. Even rows looks great for napoleonics and hoplites and such, but less so for samurai imho.
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Jan 9, 2010 23:47
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Serotonin posted:
I notice this even at 15mm, my 28mm style is pretty dark to begin with so I've had to brighten things up at 15mm to prevent the details from just disappearing into a dark shadowy mush. I'll warm up my Goblin Green, Fiery Orange and Icy Blue then...
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Jan 10, 2010 11:33
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Motherfucker. Just browsing around, and the stuff this guy squeezes out from 15mm is insane. His 25mm stuff is incredible too, and it's especially his work with freehand painting that floors me. drat, I really should start practicing freehand more because the end results are stunning. Lots of medieval goodness, especially crusade stuff.
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Jan 10, 2010 22:12
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I got the Old Glory 15mm German late war infantry today. After some goofing around with them, here are my initial reactions: 1) Wow, these have far more detail than I expected, Old Glory being a "budget" brand and all. 2) Far better variety than expected. We split a couple of 50 miniature bags, and for most of the stuff I ended up with just two of every pose. 3) Nicely enough some of the poses for the riflemen were prone soldiers with binoculars, field telephones and other doo-dads so that I can make spotters out of them. 4) A bit of flash, but the metal is quite soft so it is not so difficult to remove. I got about halfways through my miniatures in an hour. 5) A few shoddy molds. Mostly seen on some bases being almost twice as thick as ordinary. A crappy face here and there, but nothing that doesn't pass for 15mm miniatures. 6) Heiling herrings Batman, a Tiger tank is absolutely enormous in 15mm too! Seeing pictures of them is nothing compared to holding one in your hand. So this far I think Old Glory is a very good choice for your large chunks of infantry. The savings on vehicles are much smaller, and when you get into things like artillery crew you might actually end up paying more if you don't have an urgent need for 50 loaders. Definitely worth looking into if you plan to field something with massed infantry. DBA battle report: While auxilia isn't a powerhouse unit, my opponent's Tracians (almost all auxilia with some light cavalry and psiloi) completely trashed my poor warband-heavy Gauls. Warbands suck. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Jan 11, 2010 |
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Jan 11, 2010 22:40
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Lord Commissar posted:When I compared the pricing with WarStore (which is US, of course), the official FoW minis actually came out cheaper. Warstore, Strelkovy Platoon, 40 infantry, $18.00 Old Glory, infantry bag, 50 infantry, $18.00 That's the one that I can find that is the most favourable to Battlefront miniatures, if you go on a per miniature cost. Due to the bag sizes however, I'd say you end up paying a little bit more with OG but you end up with far more miniatures, some of which you might not have use for. If you are a beginner I can totally see the point with going the official miniatures since you get them all sorted out, with no extras and with bases and all that. Also I'm a dirty European who'd have to pay extra shipping from the Warstore anyway, and compared to local prices the OG is much cheaper than what FoW retail for over here.
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Jan 11, 2010 22:58
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Morham posted:Hey guys I picked up that Ambush Alley game that got posted earlier on a whim and it looks pretty fun, and even if it never gets played I'd like some 15mm modern infantry (preferably British, though American will do if I have to) to paint up...I'm UK based so do any of you UK fellows have a good go to store for stuff like that? Quick Reaction Force is a UK company that makes various 15mm moderns. They have lots of different British infantry packs. At 2 quid/8 minis you can get away with a cheap skirmish game. Or well, you could check this TMP thread out and browse your heart out: http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=86100 lilljonas fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Jan 11, 2010 |
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Jan 11, 2010 23:03
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Barry the Sprout posted:I've been playing hex-based war-games for a couple of years now, and I really enjoy them. It's only recently that I've started to get into miniatures based war-games. Me neither. One of the reason I'm trying out 6mm was that I saw some players playing what is ordinarily a pike-and-shotte hex-based wargame with 6mm miniatures. They used a green mat with enlarged hexes and modelled terrain, with the stats you ordinarily have on the chits on the bases. It looked really nice.
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Jan 12, 2010 19:41
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To the person considering 15mm moderns from QRF, timely enough they have a 15% sale until the 24th: http://theminiaturespage.com/news/551732/ I might pick up a blister or two to round out my Carthaginians, all I need are three commanders and some light cavalry. EDIT: if you are curious about picking up a DBA army they have some good deals, most of them around 10 quid. That's like two beers at a pub over where I live. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Jan 12, 2010 |
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Jan 12, 2010 22:35
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Serotonin posted:6mm is easier to paint than 28mm. Noone believes me. I do. 15mm is easier than 28mm, and 54mm is downright intimidating. EDIT: reading through Killer Katanas 2, and some things look interesting and some are a bit strange. I like the idea that you have a deck of card that you take turn drawing to activate units, but I'm not sure about the whole casualty chart thing. As in "my 24 guys with rating 4 attack you, so they cause.... 3 casualties, and an additional one on a 6+". It just seem a bit awkward to need to look at a chart for every combat instead of having a simple chart to memorize. While I can imagine that having a pretty set amount of casualties for an attack makes it more strategic and less down to luck, it feels a bit clunky. On the other hand, they have special alternative rules for seppuku, red units being better because they are painted red and fighting retreats protected by glorious last stands. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Jan 14, 2010 |
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Jan 14, 2010 19:08
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