Ruled Out

Bad planning or an unexpected wormhole?

There are three credible theories about objects which mysteriously disappear.

The first is that a wormhole briefly opens in the space time continuum and the object (your favourite biro, the EIR standard bearer you know that you bought, Lord Lucan, Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra etc) are sucked into another part of the galaxy and turn up on Deep Space 9 (only to be bored to death/become part of the decor at Quark's bar- depending on their corporeal form) or Babylon 5 or some such.

The second theory is that the object is hijacked by aliens/time travellers from the future. Inanimate objects for study/putting in a museum/selling in a 22nd century eBay (imagine how much a set of Copplestone Zanzibari regulars would go for in 2108: I had to pay twenty quid last year!). People either get dissected for research, chopped into pieces and sold at Alien Waitrose (I am sure the John Lewis Partnership is run by aliens anyway) brainwashed and returned so that they can destoy the World economy (Mr Gordon Brown), implanted with a domesday chip to explode in the next decade or get replicated as an external skin for a reptillian alien so that they can move amongst us unseen whilst plotting world domination (this explains many things about the Chinese (an easy area to grab people without anyone noticing) and also explains why my friend who was in China last week was served pickled frog at a banquet.

Kidnapped women, of course, have one purpose and one purpose only (same as on Earth, actually) and that is as breeding material. The plan is to create slaves/replace the infertile human race of the future/create human cattle ("much cheaper to breed them here on Hashkewahee, Mr President than fly all those trans-light jaunts to pick up food directly from Earth! It's all right for the rich Salamanderoids with their wild Earthling steaks but the ordinary working Reptiloids of this planet just need to get cheap meat on the table". There is an alternative theory that aliens from a rival planet are also breeding humans for food. But on Earth. Their Walking Fishoid race has invested heavily in MacDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut and Walkers Crisps to ensure that come harvest time Earthlings will be fatter and more delicious than ever. Corduroy wearing, pinko, liberals on their home planet complain about the quality of life of the poor Earthlings but that doesn't stop them eating us.

As for the best breeding material, the crafty aliens have set up the European Union (why else have it?) to bring down national barriers so that saucerloads of gorgeous Latvian, Lithuanian, Hungarian and Czech women can freely move around Europe without anyone knowing where they are. I was in Warsaw recently and the number of attractive women had noticeably diminished (they can't all be working as waitresses in the City can they?).

Reptiloid Alien/human skinsuit hybrid

Of course, some gorgeous breeding mares have to be replaced by replicants/lizards in skin suits as they are too high profile on Earth. You can spot these easily, just look for any gorgeous woman who appears to be really, really strange (Angelina Jolie, Halle Berry). A quick perusal of a Hello magazine interview will usually give you a clue. Over time of course, if they stay on Earth too long, the Alien lizard inside melds with the human skinsuit to become a sort of ghastly hybrid. In some cases due to a supply problem with the commissariat on the saucer the real person and the replicant are loose at the same time (how else do you explain Tina Fey and Sarah Palin?). One of them is an alien.

Alien plan to take over White House fails

The third way that objects disappear (and the theory I favour) is that of the multiverse. We are all constantly whizzing through myriad alternative universes where most things are the same but certain key things are different (some Mongolian peasant has three not four children, for example. Will it effect me? No. Unless the missing fourth child decides to be the new Ghengis Khan). Occasionally, and this is the point, we drop into a universe where every single thing is the same but my metal ruler doesn't exist. This has just happened to me. I was searching through my lead pile last night and found over two dozen Perry metal Napoleonics (French and Dutch). Well, I thought I'd base them up so went to the drawer to find my metal ruler and it had gone. Much fruitless searching and then my wife said that my 13 year old daughter (who has just overtaken my wife in height - 5'6" is quite tall enough, thank you) had been using it on the kitchen table. I cleared everything off but couldn't find it. Mydaughter admitted she had been using it and had left it on the table. I told her that her chances of getting the Dancing on Ice Live Tour 2008 DVD were looking pretty slim if she didn't find it. Nothing. I am unable to make bases.

This morning, however, we solved the problem. It wasn't a plunging mutiverse scenario. It was a wormhole scenario. My daughter admitted that she "may" have knocked the ruler so it went down the back of the radiator that, annoyingly, sits right next to the kitchen table and half an inch below its top surface. The gap between radiator and wall, because of the wood planking (it's all a bit New England -my wife really does love cream) is only about 3 millimetres but huge amounts of stuff have disappeared down there over the last 14 years. There must be a wormhole there because nothing ever drops out of the bottom even though there is a gap.

So that's it. I have to buy another metal ruler (and they cost a fortune) before I can base any more figures. I am really busy today and so don't know if I can get out to WH Smith to find one. Unless Games Workshop sell one for £25, of course.

Quark's Bar: My ruler is in there somewhere.

So my ruler is probably now being used to stir pitchers of Romulan Ale cocktails at Quarks Bar (not the one in the Las Vegas Hilton, where I went last year, as I think they are closing it and flogging off all the Star Trek props). That'll take the shine off it.

Grr! Life.

Blog Hit Parade: October

An interesting month. Pulp Warriors plunges from 4th to last place. Obviously the Blogger "objectionable content" warning is putting people off. The cavegirls hits have plunged too. I obviously need to put some more naked ladies onto both sites as it doesn't matter now!

1 (2) 19th Century Sudan Wargames Armies 2,851 (28,311)
2 (1) Cavegirls in Fur Bikinis 1,639 (95,900)
3 (3) Legatus' Wargames Armies 1,580 (19,835)
4 (5) Spartan WAB 823 (9,472 8,649)
6 (6) Return to Darkest Africa 751 (5,565)
7 (8) Dark Ages WAB 414 (3,269)
8 (7) Wargaming the Great Northern War 339 ( 3,293)
9 (10) 3rd and 4th Century Roman WAB 308 (2,602)
10 (9) Lord of the Rings: Armies of Middle Earth 289 (1,569)
11 (12) Punic War WAB 285 (3,611)
12 (11) The Great War 267 (998)
13 (13)Wargaming the Zulu War 240 (409)
14 (14) Byzantine WAB 200 (2,571)
15 (15) Swashbucklers 65 (401)
16 (4) Pulp Warriors 57 (48,781)

Perry Napoleonic French: assembled

The contents of the box, based.

I sat down and put these together over the weekend. It took about an hour and a forty-five minutes to get them into this state.

My first impressions are very, very favourable. Apart from the six skirmishers and the command figures, where you have to stick on their arms, the figures are complete, except for their packs. The separate arms don't fit perfectly and will need a tiny bit of filler. I have started to paint one figure and experience has shown that it is much easier to stick on the pack after you have painted the figure (avoids poking a brush into small spaces to paint belts). I also, stupidly, stuck on a backpack with greatcoat to a figure wearing a greatcoat (there are two sorts of pack: with and without greatcoats) so I had to prize it off and start again. There are many spare heads but I just used the (attached) shakos (all the figures come with shakos the other headgear is only on the spare heads) for the first set (oh dear I am already contemplating another box). Swapping heads may be quite tricky as the rifle is so close to the head so I will need to be careful.

There are a few mould lines (no flash) which can be scraped off in seconds with a sharp modelling knife. In fact I would say that preparation is quicker and easier than metal figures. I only cut my fingers twice (the plastic is hard). There really is little or no loss of definition compared with the metal figures and the size is spot on next to the metals (why couldn't Warlord Games manage this with their Romans?). I have nearly finished painting one of each metal and plastic figures so I will post them soon.

I reckon that at 1/33 ratio the box pretty much represents a two battalion regiment for Quatre Bras or Waterloo. I think I will start with the 3rd line who were one of the first units engaged at Quatre Bras. I reckon I need a mounted Colonel and another officer and drummer for the second battalion. Only the first battalion carried an Eagle, of course. The figures have round pom poms on their shakos so represent the first battalion of a regiment. The metal figures all have the flat discs of the subsequent battalions (I found that I have a number of these already). The Perrys reckon you can squeeze the pom poms to make the flat discs. I think I might try and cut them instead (more cut fingers). Something for the second box and, anyway, if you mess it up you can just bung on a new head! I also remember reading somewhere that the first battalion was likely to have had a better uniform issue than the others who were more likely to have just had greatcoats issued so I will make sure my first battalion looks a bit smarter. The chaps in any third battalion are going to look very tatty!

I think I will keep them as one unit as I don't think units of 15 or 16 will be that viable using the Charles Grant Rules.

I am so enthused about these figures that I resumed work on the two Dutch jaegers I need to finish my first company of the 28th (the first allied unit really engaged on the day of Quatre Bras). I'm also now thinking about finishing my first cuirassier!

Could a Napoleonic Blog be that far off?

Perry Napoleonic Plastic French

Proper model soldiers, these!

I popped into Orc's Nest today (it's only 400 yards from my office!) to look for a few more Copplestone Ngoni and saw that they had the Perry French Plastic in, so I just had to buy a box. They are absolutely gorgeous; far superior to their rather disappointing ACW figures. Now I can see that I will be basing up French during Strictly Come Dancing tomorrow!

This however, gives me a problem. The figures come with pre cut bases that contemplate 6 Figures on a 40mm base (which I beleive is the norm for General de Brigade). I absolutely prefer to mount my figures on individual bases and make movement trays for them. Especially as I am interested in skirmish gaming for Napoleonics using the Sharp Practice Rules. The rules I used to use for Napoleonics in my Airfix days were the very old school Charles Grant ones which first appeared in Military Modelling in the seventies. These contemplate individual figures (in battalions of 48!) and I suspect that this is what I will go for.


I have always wanted to do portions of Quatre Bras as a wargame and did a lot of research as to the units involved and the numbers of figures you would need (hundreds and hundreds). General Brigade works out at 1/20 but I was thinking about 1/33 which would give French infantry battalions of about 12-14 figures, far too small for the Grant rules. If I combined battalions so that I had four units in, say Bachelu's Division that would give units of about 30: about right.


The great thing about this box is you get 42 figures for £15.00 plus loads of alternative heads and other bits (compared with Warlord's rather stingy 20 Roman Veterans for £17.00).

Now, realistically I have painted exactly five Perry Napoleonics in three years but could this just get me painting them on the production line? I gather that many of the French units for The Hundred Days only had a uniform greatcoat and this would make painting them a lot quicker (about half the figures in the box are so equipped). Can't wait to get home and put the soundtrack to Waterloo on!

The Workbench

Warlord Plastic Romans

I'm still hardly painting anything at the moment but I'm basing lots of figures. The lack of painting is due to the bad light and a long business trip to the Gulf (I very much recommend The Chedi hotel if you are ever in Muscat). Also, even my weekends have been taken up by visits to potential schools for my little boy, trips to marble suppliers (for the new fireplace) and other nonsense so it looks like my monthly total will be just the four Sudan War highlanders.

The large amount of basing is due to the fact that I do this when watching TV with the family, which only ever happens at the weekends, if there is a dreadful enough talent show to attract my wife. Currently this is her favourite, Strictly Come Dancing, which is only made bearable by very fit young ladies in very small sparkly costumes jiggling about a lot (especially Ola Jordan). however, it is on twice over the weekend which means that I can get a fair few figures done.

The week before last I did some Anglo Saxons and Vikings to start towards some armies for Stamford Bridge. Last week I worked on some of the Warlord Games plastic Romans. With separate heads, and one arm to stick on they take some time but really don't need much (if anything) in the way of filing or sanding. The only issue I have with them is that the loose arm never really fits properly so that the shoulder armour on the arm you have to stick on is not in the same place as the moulded on one. It won't matter once they are painted, I suppose. Another slight annoyance is that I have also based some of Warlord Games' Roman Auxiliaries and they are slighly bigger than the plastics. Again. hopefully they won't be too obvious and they could arguably be strapping Batavians as against squitty little Italians.

All in all Warlord are getting me quite excited about Romans again. I just bought their new box of Veterans, which are nothing of the sort, but Trajanic Romans from the period of the Second and Third Dacian Wars 101-106AD. I will cover these in my Roman blog which I have expanded in time to cover 1st-4th century AD.
http://3rdcenturyromanwab.blogspot.com/

More Trigan Empire than Roman Empire!

They bring back memories of my old Airfix figures. I had hundreds of these and hundreds of Ancient Britons and used to play large games using the Terence Wise rules from Introduction to Battle Gaming. All Warlord need is a nice plastic chariot so I can do chariot racing games!

Painting wise I have started my next four Highlanders and am still working on the next 12 WW1 Germans, and the Zulu War British. I am doing the odd bit on the next Zulus and the Early Saxons too. Trying to concentrate on painting units does seem to be working as a means to restrict me a bit!

This weekend I should have a bit more time so am going to have a push on the Highlanders and the Early Saxons.

Vikings and Anglo Saxons?

My Gripping Beast Vikings

My little boy had to write an essay about the Battle of Stamford Bridge this weekend and mentioned that it would make a great wargame. Quite right too! I am sure that some of the magazines have had scenarios before and maybe it was covered in one of the WAB supplements (Shieldwall?). Can't check as I am in Dubai at the moment. At least there is no temptation here to start up another army just becuse I am visiting somewhere!

So maybe I will have to put my Early Saxons on hold and paint some late Saxons! For wargaming purposes I split the Saxons into three periods: Early Saxons from the Romano-British period (Musketeer make the best ones by a mile), early Anglo-Saxons to take on the Vikings (Kind Alfred period) and late Anglo-Saxons (1066 period). Unfortunately they all look different and finding figures I like for the later period isn't easy. Gripping Beast do some but the range isn't very large. Crusader have a nice range but they are from one of his shorter figure ranges. I have some Black Tree Design ones but they are very variable. I quite like the new Foundry figures but they don't have any kite shaped shields (although GB do them). Maybe I will get some of the Foundry Saxons and give some kite shields (I have a few anyway) as the look stylistically similar to my Foundry and Artizan Vikings.

Painted figures for September

The total was:
Great Northern War Swedes 1
Zulus 16

A total of 17, which was not brilliant as I was hoping to catch up a bit. So far this year I have painted 179 figures in 39 weeks; a total of 4.46 figures a week. I fly to the Gulf on Sunday for a week so that isn't a brilliant start to October either!