The Good, the Bad, and the Tacky: More 28mm Fantasy

 Some more fun with fantasy figures, painting up minis that I have had laying around for years.  It's a fun change from historicals, as I get to play with some crazy color combinations, like the Bad Taste Dude below.  I'm still improving at doing faces, and my shading is starting to look more natural.

Running Middle Earth

OK, I'll admit it. I could stand to lose a few pound.  And going to the gym is a chore rather than a pleasure for me.  I'm always searching for motivation.  So I decided to give up on the gym and  run across Middle-earth.  Well, I'll still be on the treadmill, but I'll be tracking my progress across Middle-earth, starting at Bag End and hopefully one day reaching Mount Doom.  I started with three miles yesterday.  That puts me over the Hill and across the Water, through Hobbiton and a ways down the Bywater Road.  Given that Bilbo ran this stretch as he hurried to catch up with the dwarves..well, all I can say is that Prof. Tolkien must have exaggerated how out-of-shape Bilbo was.  Or maybe the Shire is less hot and humid than my gym.

I'll give updates at major landmarks. But right now, Buckland is looking very far away.

Fantasy. Why not?

A colleague and I plan to offer a role-playing club (in addition to the simulation games club I currently offer) next year, so I decided to dig up some fantasy lead that was at the bottom of my pile and give it a go.  I started with two 28mm centaurs, because I like centaurs, and a 15mm balor who is there to give my Arthurian troops a fright.  He looks a little puny next to the centaurs.  That should teach him to lay off the potions of diminution.

While the photography is up to my usual crummy standard (gotta build a lightbox one of these days), I am quite pleased with how the centaurs turned out.  The faces in particular are the most lifelike I have ever painted.  I credit the snazzy new sable brush you can see in the background.

Russian Hussars, why not?

So I go to the gym several times a week, and while I huff and puff on the treadmill, I watch inspirational films on my smart phone, courtesy of Netflix.  These days, I'm dutifully plowing through the 1956 costumer, War and Peace.  I thought: Henry Fonda! Audrey Hepburn! Anita Ekberg! What could go wrong?  Well, as it turns out, I puzzled at the Oscar the movie won. If felt like a dusty, labored effort to get through all the good bits of the film, without creating a context for the events portrayed or developing the characters into believable or likable people.  Audrey Hepburn, whom I normally love, is the worst, bluring out lines from various chapters just to get them in.  Poor Natasha seems like a deranged loon...no, wait.  Henry Fonda as Pierre is the worst.  The consummate American everyman is woefully out of place as the soulful bear of a man who agonizes over his own inability to commit to action.  And don't get me started on the battle scenes. Six guns (conveniently screened by a treeline) go off, and Kutuzov cries "We are flanked by the French!"   End of Austerlitz.  Well, that was simple...  The greatest visual of the actual battle--French guns shelling the frozen lake across which the Russians are fleeing--must have been deemed too costly to folm.  The battle took place on a sunny spring day in the film.

Anyhow. The costumes are nice.

It inspired me to paint up some 15mm Russian Hussars that I bought and primed 25 years ago.  I no longer collect 15mm Napoleonics, so I'll show them off in my classroom for a few weeks before I offload them on eBay.  Enjoy.

Miniatures Playtest Review: Dux Bellorum Case Study

These rules use special resources called Leadership Points to sway the tide of battle. Hard to allot in a single-player game, I did the best I could and was not displeased with the results.  I think the mechanic would work much better against a human opponent, though. 

After both sides drew closer together, the cavalry on the British flanks charged.  The general’s companions stalled, but the other unit chased the Saxon archers away.  The cavalry charge was followed by an advance of the Roman-British shieldwall.  The coordinated attack drove one Saxon warband away.  The early tactical advantage seems to favor the Romano-British, as their cavalry control the flanks, but the savage Germanic warbands wear the shieldwall down quickly, and the British center looks like it might fall apart.

Clinging to desperate hopes, the Roman line holds together as the commander does what he can to shore up morale.  The cavalry tries to take advantage of the time bought so dearly for them, and they slam into the Saxon household companions.  The shieldwall withstands the charge, however.  The battle rages back and forth until the other Roman cavalry unit crosses the battlefield and slams into the Saxon companions from the rear.  What should have been a bloody rout became a valiant stand, as the inspirational Saxon commander held his lines firm.  The Saxon warbands finally start to break the shaken Romano-British lines before them.  Eventually, the casualties start to tell, and one by one the defenders make their excuses and head for home.

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