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Keith's Highlanders

May 3, 2019, 10:31 am
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Keith's Highlanders or the 87th regiment of foot were formed in 1760 and saw action at the Battles of Warburg and  Villinghausen, they were deployed to Holland in 1762 before returning to Scotland in the December of that year and were disbanded at Perth in July 1763.

I am helping Charles Grant prepare for a forthcoming publication on small scale actions of the Seven Years War which is requiring me to make new figures for the Crann Tara range, Von Luckner Hussars and Mounted Freytag Jaegers are already available and dismounted Jaegers are almost ready for production.
In addition Charles wanted figures to represent Keith's Highlanders - in the absence of light infantry the Highlanders were frequently deployed as both assault troops and light troops and therefore make a few appearances in the forthcoming publication.
To date I have completed converting 6 figures to be cast and need to complete a couple more as well as the Grenadiers.
I managed to finish painting a couple of the figures and if I say so myself the conversions haven't come out to bad (🤣)



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Wilhelmstahl part deux

May 9, 2019, 2:58 am
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Last weekend saw my travel to Charles Grants to participate in our second game based on one of the actions at the Battle of Wilhelmstahl, this one based upon Granby's attacks.
The game continued to reaffirm my belief that Ferdinand of Brunswick was a superb commander.

Yet again my opponent was John Dougan and this was the final game to complete Charles' next publication.

As usual a huge thanks to Charles and Liz for their excellent hospitality and to Charles once again for firing up my 18th century inspiration whereby I leave with a long list of figures that we've agreed need to be produced.

Just a couple of pictures of the game showing the Allied columns forcing their way out of the passes - can't give anything else away.

It's a superb game - full of refight playability.



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Partizan - Invasion of the Sugar Islands

May 19, 2019, 12:15 pm
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Today I kept up the tradition of putting on a demo game at the Newark show - first started many moons ago when it used to be held in a school sports hall!,

I had intended all along to do a game based on Stuart Insch's booklet on the invasion of the Sugar Islands and then fate intervened.

Whilst at Falkirk last week Captain Jack (Stuart Hutchinson) put on a most impressive pirate demo game on an 18x6 table which was essentially 3 6 foot square tables each one representing an island.

What was even better was that he said they were for sale, one volcano island was already spoken for but without hesitation Gavin (Gaming Figures) and I bought the other two sets - a quick tweak of the scenario and we rolled up at Partizan with our new game



























So the terrain boards were made by Stuart and that included the fort. The houses are by Games of War painted by Gavin. The ship and boats are Firelock games from their blood and plunder range. The landing stages are by Games Workshop from their ' laketown building kit. With the exception of the militia which are Minden miniatures the remaining figures are either from my Crann Tara range or conversions of my figures.

I shall do another post on the show itself suffice to say it broke all their records for attendance. 
In terms of the game we used Musket and Tomahawks and bound three neither of us could believe the incredibly poor dice throwing by me for the Brits who by the end of the day had been forced to retire.
I sold all the copies of Stuart's booklet which means ((I think) it is now out of print - time for a second print run I think.

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Playing around with the printer.

June 3, 2019, 6:15 am
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Whilst I primarily bought the resin printer to allow me to print resin masters for my figure range I really have been wanting to see what else it could do.

I noticed on Tamsin's blog that 'Gaslands' seems to be gaining some traction (😫) and likewise at my club there has been  a sudden surge of interest and people asking if I could print weapons etc for them to put on their cars etc.

There are loads of these items on thingiverse and I have duly obliged, however I thought I'd do a test on this interesting model.

The buggy has come out really well and the Humvee type model also looks fine, I Mam really impressed with the detail I can get and bear in mind the buggy was printed in one piece.

In addition I've been playing quite a bit of  15mm WWII and so thought I'd give a couple of vehicles a print - first up some Bren Carriers again I'm really pleased with these. 

Next to print will be some Shermans again all are available on Thingiverse the files by Bergman being particularly good.




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40mm Prussians anyone?

June 5, 2019, 11:36 pm
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The 40mm project continues to take another leap forward.
GrahamH has cast the command, fusiliers and Grenadiers and is sending me some metal masters to examine.

If all ok then I need to decide about putting them into production.?  Austrians are under way.
In the meantime some pics of the Grenadiers Graham has painted.


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Refighting History Volumes 7 and 8

June 18, 2019, 8:26 am
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Many of you know that I'm in a very fortunate position to engage in a number of refight s that feature in Charles Grants Refighting History series.



I recently heard from Charles about progress with Volume Seven of Refighting History.  It is now with Caliver being page set and proofs are bouncing back and forward between Caliver and Charles. Volume Seven is THE SEVEN YEARS WAR - WESTERN THEATRE covering the battles of Warburg, Vellinghausen and Wilhelmsthal (the last one in two halves). I have a vested interest in these, having been involved with all four against my usual opponent at Charles' John Dougan.  Charles has walked all three battlefield and showed me some of the photos that he took when I last saw him. Some will be in the book.

Over the last couple of years we have found ourselves very much in the Western Theatre (with Ferdinand of Brunswick fast becoming one of my favourite generals). 

There is more to come in the Western Theatre with Volume Eight. Last year in one of our Saturday evening planning meetings Charles floated the idea of a series of historical small actions in the Western Theatre. Having researched Savory’s notes and various other sources he declared that there was no shortage of these. The idea was that these could be fought with just a few units and might make a nice entry point into the Seven Years for those who did not want to raised huge armies. 

Volume 8 will also see a chapter on refighting the engagements using other rule sets such as Sharpe's Practice. 

Having picked a number of actions we decided it would be good to provide a range of suitable figures. French infantry and British grenadiers are already in the range.  So are British cavalry and French dragoons. With Charles help I have now added Von Luckner’s Hussars, Freytag's Mounted Jager and we have the Chasseur de Fischer.  Our French Dragoons have now been joined by dismounted ones. Keith’s Highlanders and dismountedjager are in the pipeline and I have more treats in store. 

In the next couple of months these forces will be mustered and we have the exciting prospect of some really interesting historical scenarios to fight in the coming year. 

In the meantime a picture of Von Kleist in action.



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40mm Royal Horse Artillery

June 27, 2019, 1:24 pm
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A bit of a change for me, Ian Smith ( he of the outstanding 40mm Napoleonic and ACW games) and Lee Gramson ( Napoleonic Therapy Project) commissioned Dan of digital Sculpts to make an Officer of the RHA for their 40mm Napoleonic project.

Ian asked if I'd do the test prints which I duly did and sent some to him to see if they fitted in with the collection.

The result I think speaks for itself.




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Chilled Sunday afternoon

June 30, 2019, 11:44 am
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since moving home and setting the loft to be a bit of den I have managed to meet up with a colleague from my school days.
Steve and I go a long way back initially playing board games, then figure games. When I went in the Police he joined the army and whilst we never lost touch time and life conspired against us.
Steve lives in the same village and he quite rightly pointed out it we be could if we could set aside some time for some quality gaming.
So recently we've been getting together on most Sundays - Steve likes World War II so I've been quite happy us gaming with Blitzkrieg Commander IV out intention being to get to know the rules etc.
This weekend was an attack defence game with me taking the part of the British.
Photos below, whilst the objective was for the British to get infantry on the crossroads which I failed to do, the Chrurchills broke the German centre and broke their morale.

I have to admit I've enjoyed the rules immensely and really enjoy these chilled out few hours on a Sunday. Perhaps it's because we play the game and not the rules agreeing on points not covered based on our knowledge etc. perhaps it's because it's just good company and quality time.








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More 3D printer madness

July 3, 2019, 10:34 am
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well after much deliberation I bought myself a Prusa MK3s fdm printer!  I have two projects for the 18th century figures I'd like to get done. The first is to build a harbour and docks with dockside buildings etc.  Printable Scenery seem to do a nice range that will fit and I also would like to be able to build a Vauban fortress.
Laserdream works do an excellent set of files to fill this gap.
Now an fdm printer is far less messy than a resin printer but the 'slicing' software for the two machines is very different so by way of an experiment and to start the learning I downloaded a free 'test' file from Laserdream works and set to.
The result can be seen below. I'm more than happy with the outcome and am now working out what I need to print!

The other consideration is if I scale it down slightly - the great thing with the printers is the ability to scale up or scale down and certainly some of the buildings I'm looking at producing are designed for the 'heroic' 28mm and will be scaled down to take up a far smaller footprint.
In the meantime here's the test piece. In terms of cost I reckon this cost around 0.90p



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More printing and what of the future?

July 5, 2019, 3:26 am
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well up and running early today 🤣 First the resin printer is busy printing some 15mm jeeps! But last night I printed some more Prussians etc. In particular the Fusilier NCO and the first draft Austrian Grenadier.
The Grenadiers hat is too tall and musket too fine and fed this feedback to Dan but I like the position and it's going to be a good figure. The Prussian Fusilier NCO came out really well and I like him.




I'm using a new skin coloured resin which works well and seems less brittle dare I say it you could just about print and play 🤣
Onto the Vauban - I mentioned I was going to print this at 90% size quite an arbitrary reduction but as you know the CT figures are quite slender and I'm hoping it works ok if not we shall have to scale up! So the first two parts of the bastion are on the go and as it shows on the screen - estimated 22 hours so will post results tomorrow!

So at the club last night we got talking about the future of the hobby with all this technology - as it turns out there are now 6 of us with 3D printers - only me with a resin printer and whilst I'm new to the hobby some of the chaps have been very busy. Robbo had printed out the start of his Roman city wall! in 28mm - gate house towers etc and about 4 town houses in material about £12!!

When I did the 15mm Sherman it cost around £1 in resin the Bren carriers 0.35p the recent 40mm figure prints I did were about 30p each!

Now of course we discussed the initial outlay but in terms of the maths if 2 or 3 people grouped together it wouldn't take long to recoup the costs of both the machine and the materials.

Now I think it will be a long time before the figure manufacturers have to worry although I would be quite happy printing 20mm or smaller figures on the resin printer for use on the table.

However in terms of terrain  - with so many free files on offer or bundles of terrain at not a lot I really can't see me buying any more buildings add to that the ability to print in almost any scale so I can print the Vauban for example for 6mm right up to 40mm! then why would I. In terms of time then really apart from making sure everything is fine at the start then really the machines can be left to their own devices so we said for companies such as Hovels etc then maybe their days are numbered?  It may even have an impact on the plethora of MDF makers out there

As with all things rather than being a doom merchant I would prefer to embrace the change and see where it takes us.

Only 21 hours to go :)


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Vauban - the start

July 6, 2019, 1:21 am
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Well after the mammoth 22 hour print the first two pieces of the first bastion is complete, the next two pieces I think I will print one at a time.
I scaled it down slightly and printed at 90% - I think it looks fine with the figures - so onwards and upwards


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Half a bastion, half a bastion onwards

July 7, 2019, 1:13 pm
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Half way there on the first bastion 😀

And if you thought I had forgotten the figures I've finished basing 2 squadrons of the British 6th Horse and a 15mm Ancient Greek army
No photos of the Greeks yet but here's a hasty photo of the British Horse.

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Bastion finished

July 10, 2019, 8:52 am
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i know you may be mighty bored of this by now 🤣 However the final parts for the bastion are done, I'm well impressed.
I shall now do some walks etc and let you have a rest before there's any more printing updates.


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Just for Lee and Tamsin (and anyone else interested)

July 11, 2019, 7:14 am
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Ok some more printing projects - Tamsin enquired about printing the 1/100 scale Bergman files off thingiverse at 28mm scale

Airborne radio jeep, I got the orientation slightly wrong so front wheels need a bit of repair but the next one I do will be fine.
Next Lee asked about the Shermans- the Sherman and Bren Carrier are both printed in resin, the Sherman worked out at just over a £1 the Bren about 0.32p.
Then I did a Kangaroo ram on the fdm - cost 0.38 p and photographed against a commercial one £4.00 retail! Yeah on the fdm you can see some lines and they can be minimised but for me by the time painted etc and on the table they will hardly be visible.

The bastion by the way cost about £15 but I'm going to increase the'infill' which could reduce the cost to around £12 - not bad I think.





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Workbench update

August 6, 2019, 6:03 am
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Sorry for the short break - real life got in the way I'm afraid.
That doesn't mean to say I've been idle though - the Vauban continues to grow, 2 bastions done and work has started on walls.

I also did a couple of 15mm buildings for a game the other Sunday, the ruined chateau is only base coated hope to finish that next week
I won't mention the 'fairy' doors my wife has got me to print for the grandkids!!
On the painting front more horses, Highlanders and 15mm Ancients are all work in progress.
Finally had to say good bye to our last dog 😪 Poppy was 13 and was primarily my wife's dog I was there for the walks and feeding although later in life I found she liked coming with me to the local pub.
A character she will be missed



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Battle of Maidstone redux!

September 1, 2019, 4:38 am
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I have just been finishing my next article for the Wargames Annual and it is the second part of the proposed Invasion of England 1744.
Now I did a brief report of the Battle I fought on here which will form the basis of the article however what I did forget at the time was that iPad photos just don't cut it when it comes to publishing in books or magazines so this week I set it all up again and took a new set of far better photos, couple of teasers below.





   All in all 90+ photos - can't see Charles using them all otherwise it would be a Crann Tara special.
Off to the States shortly to see my son, last time I visit Chicago as he moves to Denver in October so next year will see a visit to a new state.
Unfortunately printing and painting has slowed down these last couple of weeks as I've taken the leap in renting a small office/studio to run the business from it will allow me a little more space and should stop distractions🤣 So lots of preparation in getting ready to move stock etc.
I have been dabbling with GW contrast paints - mixed results as I expected a lot depending on the colours and undercoat but I shall persevere.

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Breaking the silence - Fire as she bears!

September 26, 2019, 8:52 am
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Thought it was about time I announced my return to the UK - actually I got back from seeing my son in Chicago on the 16th after a really good 12 day break. This was then followed last Thursday to a visit to the club for a catch up where I caught a chest infection which has laid me low most of this week!

Never mind onwards and upwards - before I was struck low I spent last Wednesday and Thursday moving Crann Tara Miniatures into new premises but more of that will appear on the other blog.

Most of you can't have failed to see Warlord Games announcement of its forthcoming 1/700th scale Napoleonic Naval game, now those that follow my blog know that I have a very nice collection of Langton 1/1200 th scale ships which occasionally take sail for a game but I'm always conscious of my ham  fistedness damaging them so this announcement piqued my interest. Now at the same time Simon Mann on wargaming 3D released a series of 1/700th scale files of various named ships for the period some of these are free and some just a few dollars.

To top all that Suturnalia Studios ran a Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/saturnaliastudios/fire-and-sails
For ships, terrain and rules the ships are 1/650 so the small ships are fine the larger ships  need printing at 92% to make them the same size as those from warlord. So it looks like my ability to fight larger actions and not worry about damage will be fulfilled.
To be expected I've printed some bits and pieces off by way of testing the prints are a mix of this from Wargaming 3D and the KS and ive included a Warlord frigate. Last photo is a few of the buildings I've printed off. Printing sails in two parts and gluing together is a bit of a trial but I'm getting there. So about an 90 minutes to,print a couple of frigates or a 74 for pennies . The fleet starts to assemble 🤣






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A little more printing

October 11, 2019, 12:56 am
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In between being hit by a chest infection and settling in at the 'pod' for the Crann Tara business I've managed to squeeze in a little more printing. The FDM printer has mainly been used to print dolls house furniture! To occupy the dolls house I'm building for the granddaughters but the resin printer has seen action, first to print off some 28mm Hungarians Dan has made for me.
Second to print the 40mm RHA crew that Dan has designed for Ian Smith.
All come out rather nice




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HOTT, Fiasco and bits and pieces

October 29, 2019, 12:29 pm
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Once a year I travel to Brompton for the Good, Bad and Ugly! Hordes of the Things Tournament.!
For me it's a good chilled day with like minded people and allows me to paint something that's a bit daft.
This year I painted up Alternative Armies 'Seasonal Army' so Jack Frost leads his maniacal snowmen, ginger bread men etc. The church was picked up from The Works and painted and suitably ' snowed up ' by me.
This years event took place on the 20th October at the Rugby club - great venue.
So with minimal planning I ended up winning the tournament, best army and best camp 🤣 a clean sweep. Big thanks to all involved and to Bob Carter for organising the North East leg of this worldwide tournament.






The 27th October saw me pay a visit to the Fiasco show at Leeds. I have to admit that within a short time of entering the Stygian gloom of the hall I remembered why I stopped trading there and stopped attending. 
For me the venue isn't conducive to encouraging anyone to stay and when I arrived ( about 11.am) it appeared to be quite busy.  There wasn't any really outstanding games  ( in my opinion) and after a chat to a few people I left for a coffee and didn't return.

Pete Berry of Baccus miniatures has had a bit of debate on Facebook about this show and in general about the future of shows, bottom line is with the exception of Salute which is acknowledged as a mega trade show then the majority of others need to change in order to accommodate the changing gaming population- Hammerhead and Partizan I feel are two of the best shows by encouraging participation games.
I fear Fiasco may go the way of the Triples if things don't change just doing same old for 20+ years I don't think is good enough any more!

Finally I'm not going to bore you with anymore 3D printing - well not this week. 
I've managed to get finished the first two squadrons of Saxon Cuirassiers, riders painted by Steve Allen the rest by me. I tried 'contrast paints' on the horses - not bad but I still prefer 'oils'




Finally I've started a new 'winter project' more of that next post



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Stuart Asquith

November 4, 2019, 6:49 am
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I learnt from Charles Grant this morning the very sad news that Stuart Asquith passed away last night.
A prolific author and gamer one only has to look on the Caliver books website to see how many books he had written and published. He was also the editor of Practical Wargamer a magazine that provided a great source of information and inspiration. Sadly I only met Stuart a couple of times at Partizan and then albeit but briefly. What was clear that his passion for the hobby remained with him throughout and that it was quite infectious - on both occasions after our conversations I felt re- enthused.
Alongside the likes of Don Featherstone and  Charles Grant, Stuart was one of those individuals that has kept me in the hobby for all these years.
A great loss to the hobby.

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