Hobby Update June 2025

Wow! Half this year has gone by already. Seems like it just started. Its been a busy one on all fronts, probably why it seems to have moved along so quickly.  Also, preparations for TaKtiCon have really started in earnest. TaKtiCon is a local con here in KC Nov 7-9 this year, take a look here .

Books

Finished a couple this month. First off

Not what I thought it was when I bought it, but an interesting book of Viking tales none the less. This translation was difficult to read. Hopefully there is a better one out there.

I also finished this

I have to say, this was a vast improvement over the first book. Though, in retrospect, I think he really needed to set the scene, so to speak, in the first one. The second was excellent, and I was looking forward to the third.

Purchases

June was not a big month for purchases. I picked up a few figures though. First up were some ACW Bucktails in 15mm. When I had gotten the command pack for the VMI cadets it was a mixed pack with 2 sets of Bucktail command as well. So I decided to order some bucktails . I got enough for a couple regts.

I also picked up another sprue of Perry men at arms for my SAGA French. I felt that the 4 figure hearthguard units were just too brittle  so ill bump them up to 6. They should hang around better that way.

Lastly I bought a pack of Victrix early Saxons. I blame Midgard and the Warlord Chronicles for this purchase. Though I had been toying with the idea of an early Saxon SAGA army as well.

Games

Unlike most months I have been able to get some gaming going in June. The first weekend was a Bolt Action Demo game put on by Underfire Bolt Action club down in Peculiar MO. I had been waiting for them to run demos again after a long run of tournaments. Had a good time and learned a lot about game play. I also got in two games of SAGA with my French. Which is always fun. Unfortunately our SAGA Ironman for the 29th fell through, but we still did our league games anyway. All in all, a decent month of gaming.

Painting

This was a decent month overall. I did stay on the plus side v purchases, July won't be as kind.  I managed to get 180 figures done as opposed to 112 purchased. Among those painted were some 28mm Alpini, 28mm Spanish for the WW2 Blue Division, a Few Waffen SS supports, some French knights in 28mm, and a bunch of 15mm Mexican American War stuff, odds and end mostly as I come to a conclusion to the project most likely this week. Here are some pic of some finished products!

Perry French Knights for Saga

More Perry Knights as a Warlord

Perry English bowmen 

A mix of Warlord and Black Tree Roman Command

Pt 1 of Warlords Chobei's Renegades

Pt 2 Chobei and the rest of the renegades

Zenit Miniature samurai

More Zenit bowmen this time

These are Zenit, I think they were stretch goals for the Kickstarter

More Italian Wars

An Italian pike block from Alternative Armies

And that's about it for June See you all next month!

Hobby Update March 2025

Well. here we are. Another month has passed, and so we have another hobby update. So, lets get started

Books 

Finished up a few books the first one was this

This is a collection of stories of the list survivors. The author does a good job of avoiding repetitiveness while keeping the stories intact. Most of the stories in this book are people who are not depicted in the movie or the original book, with the exception of the other Helen, not Hirsch, that was a maid for Amon, and the Rosner family. Outside of that it's all different people. It gives a whole new dynamic on how the list was made, and why people were on it. It also gives a bit of a different perspective on Schindler's legacy from those he saved. To some a beloved hero, to others a flawed hero, to a few just another Nazi, and some opinions in the middle. Definitely worth a read.

Then there was this masterpiece

The story of the fighting east of the Barrikady in Stalingrad. A very detailed, but highly readable, day by day account from the start of the German offensive, to the end of the Stalingrad pocket. Daily manpower and casualty reports, as available for both side, good details on the fighting, with great maps, some imposed over recon photos of the battlefield. A must read for anyone interested in Stalingrad.

And lastly we have another Ostfront book somewhat combining the two themes above

A nice little read to fill in the blanks on the Bielski brothers. Got me motivated to do some partisan raids using 02 Hundred.

Purchases

I did happen to buy quite a few figures this month. Sorry, no pics but here is a detailed account.

Picked up 12 Fireforge mounted sergeants for use in SAGA, probably get double duty as Crusaders and sergeants in Chivalry.

Picked up 41 Perry Koreans. I have been wanting to put together a skirmish game surrounding the strife of the princes in early Joseon Korea between Yi Bang Gan, and Yi Bang Won for succession. So I caught some on FB and nabbed them right away. They will be a great start.

I had bought into a KS that featured the Monkey King and those figures arrived last month. They were doing physical prints through a third party, and they did not come out to well. Lack of proper curing, bent weapons etc. They are working on replacements so we will see how it turns out. I am a big fan of the Sun Wukong character in the Journey to the West Saga. The characters in the KS were really cool, but they had left out Wuneng and Sha Monk unfortunately.  Wuneng with his muck rake would have been super cool. You can see the figures here

I picked up 12 Perry archers for SAGA Chivalry. Sometimes its easier to just get a couple sprues.

I also has placed an order with Alternative Armies for more Renaissance 15mm figures. I found I was short some Swiss, and some Italians, and I added in some Italian pike for good measure, hey, they were on sale. 82 figures total. 

Then I picked up some ACW figs from Stone Mountain. I am wanting to run a New Market battle, so of course I needed some VMI cadets. Now if someone just made a flag for them. And I was short some cavalry dismounts. Another 87 figures.

Gaming

Nothing much to report here. April should be the start of some gaming. Got the SAGA AOC league starting at the end of the month, and planning some MESBG in a couple weeks also. So, stuff to look forward to.

Painting

This month I got a decent amount done. I average about 200 a month, but I fell a bit short at 177. This included the following;

16 28mm Samurai

66 15mm Confederate

85 15mm Italian Wars

10 Silver Bayonet (British Unit)

Like I said, a decent amount but short of expectations. I did get a lot of basing done on my Italian wars project, here are the Imperialists first

The cavalry and general are all Alternative Armies/TTG figures, depending on when I bought them. The pike is all Mike Models. Most of these figures were painted 30 years ago, and originally based for Gush. Now rebased for Impetus. The small pike unit was recently painted using Army painter Speed paints, as were the back ranks of the other two pike blocks. Georg von Frundsberg was a recent addition as well.

I also have some Spanish

The top picture are Spanish lancers/gendarmes from TTG, the next pic we have Spanish Rodoleros from Roundway, and the last four pics are all Mikes Models. The pike, and the black and red painted shot were dome years ago, everything else, including a handful of pike were recently painted.

Here are a few Swiss/French/Italian

Top pic the front and back units are Roundway figures, the middle TTG/Alternative Armies with TTG command figures for all. The rest of the figures are TTG/Alternative Armies, my packs were all TTG but Alternative Armies makes most of these not, but not all. The shot in the first pic, and the French Archers in the second are all newly painted. The rest were done with the others and rebased for Impetus. I should have the rest of the Swiss, and most of the French done for next month. 

As a side note, most of the flags above, with the exception of about 1/3 of the Landsknecht flas, are from Pete's Flags. You can find him on FB or eBay.

That is it this time 'round see you next month!

2024, The Year That Was.......

Here we are, almost 2 weeks into 2025. 2024, was really strange year. Very chaotic, I suppose the death of our son-in-law in March set the tone. Helping my daughter out, moving her back in,  a bunch of dental work, setting up our first Takticon convention, and my wife becoming an American citizen, kind of made it a crazy year. But, that's all behind me, and we are on to a new year, and a new year of gaming. 

At the end of  2023 I set out some goals for 2024. So lets take a look and see how I did.

Here were the goals

Complete my Mexican American War Project

Complete my Last Alliance Army

Complete the figures that I have on hand for the Peninsular War

Complete all my 20mm vehicle kits

Get all the painting done for Pavia so I can start playtesting the scenario

Complete all my 28mm Japanese terrain for the samurai

Paint one 15mm ancient army

Complete the AWI project

Start my 15mm project for the '45

Start my 10mm 1864/70 project.

Considering all that was going on I think I did ok on my goals

Complete my Mexican American War project - Really this was to be a cleanup of the stuff I have left on hand and finish up a few units. I have some random stuff left to do, but, most of the project is complete. Just need to finish this up, Quite possibly this year.

Complete my Last Alliance Army for MESBG - This is mostly done. Working on the last figures right now. They will be done this week.

Complete my figures on hand for the Peninsular War - This was a bit too ambitious. I did not realize how many I had. I bought enough 15mm figs for Albuera, or so I thought, and had a second order to flesh out the forces for Talavera. I got about half done, most of Albuera. The rest may get worked on this year.

Complete my 20mm vehicle kits - Yeah, no. started some but no where near wrapping these up.

Get all the painting done for Pavia -  I have most of this done. I am finishing up the Imperialist forces in the next couple weeks then I'll get them based up and take account of what I have and still need. I know for sure I need to do the Landsknecht pike for the French, but I think most everything else is done. One good thing was that there was an Italian wars scenario book published last year that included orbats for Impetvs, that will save me a lot of work in formulating the game.

Landsknecht Pike for Pavia

Complete all my Japanese terrain in 28mm - I did about 1/3 of it. I still have a bunch of Sarissa stuff to build, a couple printed buildings, 3 hovel bldgs, and the Sarissa castle.

Paint one 15mm ancient army - Didn't happen

Complete AWI project - Did not start this

Start my 15mm Jacobite project - Did this and painted all the figures I had on hand, including some I had purchased this year

Start my 1864/1870 project in 10mm - Started thinking about this but never got too far with it. Not sure where this is going.

I did get some Romans done for SAGA here's a few pics

In retrospect this was probably a pretty aggressive plan, like I usually do, but it did not survive first contact with real life. I am happy with what I got done. Probably struggling with storage more than anything at this point. I'll get it figured out. I did not keep track of painting last year or purchases. I am already changing that for this year, tracking my painting so far. Looks pretty good at the moment.

Goals for 2025

I have struggled a bit with this. I have plenty to do, but other than getting Pavia done for the fall, and playing more. I don't have anything I want to set in stone here. Planning is gearing up for our second Takticon convention in November, and I have been thinking of games to run at a couple of shorter events as well. I think I am going to leave it at that, and maybe try to double my painting output over my purchases this year, or better.

I am planning on posting at least once a month going forward, we will see how that goes.....

Progress on Pavia 2025 a Review of Wargames Scenarios The Italian Wars, and Some Painting

 I have been making some progress, though it was slow, and I was really struggling with how I wanted to portray the battle. I had a preliminary OOB set up based off the Osprey Campaign book for this battle, but, I was struggling with the map, and how best to set it up. I belong to a Facebook group on Wargaming th Italian Wars and a few weeks ago someone posted their scenario for Pavia. Now theirs was set up for the Old School Gush rules, and while I like that, they are not really suitable for a convention game, which is what I am doing. I did like the map set up and the fact the armies were completely deployed and ready for battle. That will be one feature I use in my game, though some forces will be behind others as they are still deploying. My OOB, based off the Osprey is as follows,

French

One pike block of swiss with one unit of supporting arquebusiers

One landsknecht pike block with one unit of supporting arquebusiers

One French pike block (smaller) and two units of arquebusier

Three units of Italian arquebusier

Four units of French and Italian Light Cavalry

Three units of Gendarmes

Artillery (as many or few needed for balance)

Baggage Camps ( there was the main camp and one by the Mirabello

Spanish/Imperialist

Four units of Italian arquebusiers

Two Spanish pike blocks

One Italian pike block

Two landsknecht pike blocks with one supporting unit of arquebus each

Two units  of Spanish gendarmes

One unit of Jinetes

Three medium guns

I was pretty happy with this and I placed orders with various companies (Essex for Mikes Models, and Alternative Armies for the old TTG line, to match what I already have) to fill in the missing figures. If you remember, I am using Impetus for the rules, and the diorama style basing should look cool once it is all done. I have already rebased some of my existing minis, and I need to paint a few to flesh out all the units. I'll post those later this year as I get them complete. 

In the last couple weeks I saw in the Facebook group, that there was to be an Italian Wars scenario book coming out, and it was available on Amazon in the US right away. Despite it being pricey ($40 usd) I nabbed it right off, based solely on the fact it had a Pavia scenario. More about that later. The scenario book comes with all the info you need to refight 20 Italian War era battles. from Seminara to Scanagallo a time span of almost 60 years. Here are shots of the covers.

The best part for me, was that all scenarios come with orders of battle set up for Furioso, Impetvs, and Pike and Shotte. As you can see from the front cover there was at least some collaboration of some sort with Warlord, Alternative Armies, and Dadi & Piombo, the publishers of the rules in question. I was happy to see the OOB for Pavia, and while it differs from mine a bit, I am looking forward to playing around with both OOBs to see what I want to do with it. I do plan on building all the units for both, so I will need to go back to the well to buy a few more figures, most notably another swiss pike block. Here is the OOB sample from the front of the book so you can see it laid out. In the book each scenario has a brief description of the battle, the OOB with mods for the three rules sets, two maps, one a gridded terrain map, the other a deployment map, and a few special rules regarding terrain. 

I was also happy that the map and deployments were more or less what I was looking to do. If you are looking for a books with inspirational pictures etc, this is not it. However, it does fill a glaring need for scenarios in the Italian Wars. I may be a bit more forgiving than others but I am pleased with it despite the price point. Now I need to dig in and get those minis painted and  then find a Mirabello, and some park wall, like 6 feet of it, in 15mm!

And yes, I have been painting, just not for the Italian Wars.

I have really been plowing through my Spanish Civil War project

Assaultos

A Whole Lot of Republican Militia

A few 20mm Japanese I picked up

These were all Sgt Major minis I picked up from eBay.

And then I finished a handful of Greeks for my SAGA Greek City States

The peltasts are Victrix with Little Big Men shields, and the cavalry are Warlord games.

That is all I have this time around. I hope you found it interesting.

Until next time! Happy Gaming.