A tale of salty seadogs! Games Workshops' Legends of the High Seas!

Ah harr ship mates, as fine a crew as you could hope to muster! Place your mark here and sign on for the voyage!

When the opportunity to do a little pirate skirmish war-gaming came along with the recent release of Games Workshops Legends of the High Seas, by Tim Kulinski, I and a few of the other Kapiti Fusiliers jumped at the chance.
It would be a nice break from large armies and long detailed games, to a game that can be a lot of fun , played relatively quickly and with a handful of models. So not too expensive to get involved in, enough historical basis to be interesting, and a free hand at colours and uniforms.

For me it was a welcome change from the 15mm Flames of War camouflage colours I had been busy with most recently, and great fun getting back to 28mm figures and flamboyant colours.

All the figures are from Foundry's 25mm Cutthroats range, and were purchased as part of a horde deal, and split up between those taking part.

I painted them up in my usual manner using GW and Foundry acrylic paints. Black undercoat to start, do the eyes, then work up the colours from a dark base tone, and add lighter tones to finish the figure. This technique may be referred to as "Impressionist" or "Dallimore".

The figures were based on NZ 10cent coins, with a little fine gravel and static grass for decoration. We chose these relatively small base sizes to allow for closer model placement, in the cramped confines of shipboard action.



The Pirate Captain. Armed with sword and 3 pistols.



First Mate with pistols and sword, sheathed.



Second Mate, with Sword pistol and whip, to keep those seadogs in line!



Quartermaster, for ships supplies, with pistol and parrot!



Cut throat armed with Musket and sword.



Rogue with pistol and sword.



Rogue with pistol and sword.



Rogue with pistol and sword.

We have still yet to start playing as other players are still busy painting their crews. And there is a degree of model making required, as I find my crew in need of a ship. A major model making undertaking as one could hope for! Wish me luck.

I hope to report back with tales of daring-do, and piracy on the high seas of the early 18th century, the Golden Age of Piracy!

As the campaign develops and crews increase in size, I hope to report back with details to new crew additions.

Blog update 24/10/8: More Crew additions:-



Ugly Betty! No matter how I tried, this girl has very heavy features. I tried painting her as a negro (I hope thats an OK word to use(?) and I mean no offence by it), but it didnt look right, so I went back to being a caucasian again. Lets face it if a girls going to turn to pirating she better be tough, and I wouldn't want to meet this girl in dark alleyway! ;-)



I call this guy Turk, no prizes for guessing why! I guess he a kind of Barbary Coast type.



Freed slave turned to piracy.



Rogue with twin cutlasses, he better be good on the charge as he has no pistol to back things up from a distance



Jimmy the Knife, don't upset him or he'll pin you to the wall.



Traditional pirate



Another freed plantation slave keen to get revenge on his former masters



Big black guy of arabian decent. A eunoch? I'll let you ask him!

Flames of War - Late War British Commandos

Flames of War late war British commandos:



Black undercoat
Uniforms: Foundry 12a Drab + GW Graveyard earth
Packs: Foundry 26A Forest Green + Foundry 26C Forest Green
Skin: GW Bestial Brown + GW Vomit Brown + GW Dwarf flesh
Hair: GW Scorched Earth + GW Snakebite leather
Rifle wood: GW Scorched earth + GW Bestial Brown
Berets: GW Dark Angels Green + GW Woodland Green
Boots & gun barrels: GW Black



Update - 22/12/7 - although the pics dont show it (they are a little dark), I was not too happy with some of my colour choices.
I toned down the berets which looked too bright, so these were just GW Jungle Green over a black undercoat.
The webbing etc was also slightly gaudy I thought so I switched this to Foundry 27A followed by Foundry 27C. Its a "flatter" pale green than the slighty brighter 26 shade I had originally done.
I am now happy with the result and will press on to finish the platoon.



Platoon finished and based Xmas '07. Base was textured with a layer of polyfilla, and fine gravel/sand. This was painted GW scorched brown and gravel inked with brown ink. Dry brushed then with GW Vermin Brown then Foundry 12c Drab. Finally static grass added with thinned PVA glue.

Picture shows two full 13 man platoons (the 6 teams on the large bases), plus company command base with bagpiper, and 2iC command base. Also in front, sniper to left, and two PIAT teams and a light mortar team - all the toys a commando platoon needs! ;-)

Flames of War Commando Briefing available here.

Also a possible Dieppe Briefing

Pressing on with Platoon #2

Update: 6/2/8.
Second Platoon completed and also finished Commando Weapons platoons including 3" mortars and Vickers HMG. Also first section of 6pdr anti tank gun divisional support platoon.


Commando 3" Mortar platoon with 3 teams and platoon command and spotter teams.


Close up of Mortar team


Commando Vickers HMG platoon with platoon command


Close up of Vickers HMG team


6pdr anti tank gun from divisional support. First section of 2 guns painted - still have to do second section and Universal troop carrier. Will probably sub a spare commando platoon command team to act as their command. They will be accompanying the commandos, so makes sense to have some commando "advisers".

Update - March 08.
Finished off the divisional support options that I currently have: The 6pdr anti-tank gun section, complete with 4 Loyd Carriers and a Universal carrier for platoon command. I have also added the option of one up gunned section comprising two 17pdr anti-tank guns, with M5 Half Tracks from the "lend lease" agreement with the US, as towing vehicles. Interestingly, although the M5 were supplied fitted with 50cal machine-gun, the Brits took them off before entering action. I don't think the Brits envisaged using them in the same way as the Yanks.



6Pdr anti-tank gun seciton with Loyd carriers and UC command.


17pdr anti-tank gun section with M5 Half-tracks.


Close up of Loyd carrier.


Close up of Universal carrier.

I have not got round to adding the vehicle markings, I need to get a pack of decals from Battlefront.

This gives my little force just over 1000 points worth of troops for FOW. I would like to add another Commando combat platoon pack and a Typhoon flight for air support. That should take my force up to 1500 points or there abouts.

Warhammer English Civil War - Parliament

This project started late 2005 / early 2006 (I think?), shortly after I had first moved to New Zealand. The small town I had moved to, Whakatane, did not appear to have any local wargamers, but after doing a bit internet surfing I came across a chap in the next town over, Rotorua, called Nathan Ward.

I was interested in playing Warhammer Historical, at the time I was finishing off a medieval army. Nathan was considering Warhammer but for the English Civil War supplement. So we mutually decided to give this period and rule-set a whirl. I had previously picked up a set of rules from E-bay, but not done anything with them at that point.

Next we had to get some miniatures. My first port of call normally for figures is Foundry. However, having checked out the Foundry range I was not overly impressed with some of the poses; the musketeers looked oddly crouched over which did not appeal. Also the price of Foundry figures plus postage to New Zealand, was prohibitive.

Yet more internet searching revealed Renegade miniatures, who had at the time, a post free worldwide deal on their army deals. I gleefully ordered the foot and horse army packs. These came through a little while later and I set to work; filing, basing and undercoating so that we could get a feel for the rules, with based figures. The figures were nicely sculpted and slightly larger than the Foundry figures I was used to.

The only problem at the time was that Renegade were only offering the foot and horse, with no other figures available; no artillery, dragoons and other desirable figures. More internet searching revealed that compatible ranges in style and scale were Bicorne and Redoubt. I liked the look of the Bicorne figures and found helpful responses from Andrew Barrett at Bicorne, with questions about the ranges on offer.

I have to say I was put off going with Redoubt, who may have had a wider range but a lot of their figures came with separate heads and to be honest I couldn't be bothered with the hassle of having to glue them all into place.

So Bicorne won my business and some artillery and dragoons and militia etc were finally ordered.

Just as things were starting to progress nicely, our plans for New Zealand changed, and my family and I moved south to Kapiti Coast. Not finding anyone playing WECW locally, but meeting up with guys at the Wellington Warlords who were playing Warhammer Ancients, I decided to start an ancient germanic barbarian army.(See separate post for full details of this venture!)

So my poor old WECW army got put on the back burner...

During the time of painting up my Barbarians I had met with the local Kapiti Fusiliers and Fusilier Steve Sands was interested in the ECW period and had an army, although based for WRG. Over time, Steve very sportingly decided to give these WECW rules a go, and gradually re-based his army and off I went again with my WECW painting project.

I still have a ways to go but heres whats done so far (Dec 07):




This is the first regiment of foote I painted. All Renegade, painted in acrylics, on magnetized bases and movement trays. The pikes are 100mm Foundry spears/pikes, and very sharp they are too! The flag is hand-made and painted, but I may replace this with a commercially available one from GMB.



The second regiment of foote painted. Again all Renegade. I still need to sort out the flag for the ensign of this regiment.



Some spare Renegade musketeers were painted in general, non-uniformed colours, to act as a separate Forlorn Hope, or add some extra figures to the other foote regiments shot sleeves.

It was at about this point that my ECW painting stalled to go on to the Barbarians.



When painting finally resumed, I decided to "let myself in gradually" to the period again (and not be scared off by having to face painting big units!), and started with some artillery and crews. These are Falconets, light guns, from Bicorne.



These are Sakers, medium guns, again from Bicorne.



Well I guess an army needs someone to lead it into battle, so here are the Parliament Commanders. From left to right, William Waller, Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell. Figures from Bicorne.



There was no putting it off any longer. I had to make a start on the cavalry. I tend to prefer painting infantry to cavalry, as the individual models paint faster. Consequently I tend to find cavalry a bit of a slog, but there was nothing for it but to press on. These are heavy horse, with breast and backplate and gauntlet on left arm. Figures from Renegade.



And then I decided to place another little order with Bicorne to fill another few gaps in my force. A mortar and crew duly arrived and were painted up as a nice interlude to the cavalry. The mortar, shells and red jacketed crew member are Bicorne, the other crew are spare cannon crew, also from Bicorne. There is a nice little pair of mortar crew I am still busy with who are carrying a mortar shell between them. I'll post a picture when finished.



Having decided to turn our ECW games into a campaign, where armies would march with baggage trains, I needed to get some carts and wagons to represent this on the table top. Again Bicorne came through with some nice figures. This is their cart and driver. This was a multi-part piece that needed assembling. The parts were well sculpted but a little fiddly to assemble. I used Araldite for glue (a two part epoxy) and used Blu-tac to hold pieces together while glue sets. I prefer Araldite to super-glue as it makes a stronger less brittle bond, although does have the nuisance of taking a little while to set. The base is several GW cavalry bases glued long edge to long edge, and the sloped edges filled with glue and sand.



And finally the four wheeled wagon again from Bicorne.

Of course it has to be said both cart and wagon are empty of supplies! I will have to sculpt some sacks with Greenstuff, and add them later.

No doubt these carts and wagons will see a lot of service in my future gaming as they will probably do service in many armies, medieval onwards, either as baggage trains or perhaps just battlefield decoration.

Well thats enough distraction, back to painting those horses!

Design of a Gamesroom

When the chance came for my wife and I to design and plan our own home, one of the things I had always wanted, was a purpose built games room.

Most of us have to make do with setting up battles on the dining room table, and then having to clear everything away after each game. Others are lucky enough to have a spare bedroom which can be made to fit the bill, although unless its an especially spacious bedroom, will still be a little cramped to fit all the gaming paraphernalia into it; table and space to move around it, painting area, storage for models and terrain, seating, bookshelves for reference literature and rules, the list goes on and on. Some can utilize the garage or shed, but these may be cold and damp in winter.

Through my gaming "career" I have worked my way through these different levels, monopolizing the dining room table while at home with my parents, to finding a small spare bedroom in my first home.

Our house was designed (and subsequently built) with our input, by Homecreators here on the Kapiti Coast. Dave Smithson was great to deal with in the initial planning stages and made the whole process very easy. As the build progressed, our main contact switched to Daves brother Ben, who helped work through all the "nitty gritty" of the build itself, and loose ends that needed tidying up afterwards. If you are on the Kapiti Coast, and want a house built, I cannot recommend them enough.

The gamesroom itself, started out as an addition to the garage. It then went through a couple of design changes including being made into an "attic-truss" type configuration, where the games room would have been above the garage. However, this would actually have cost more to do, and given me less space. So the plan reverted to being on the ground floor, located to the side of the garage. This worked out simply because we had the ground space to do it on the section of land we had.

The gamesroom is accessible through the ranch-sliders at the front of the house to left side of garage doors. This means the gents can call to the house and enter the gamesroom without disturbing the rest of the house. An internal door connects to the garage, through which you come to the utility/laundry, and then on into the main house hallway for access to the the toilet.

We thought about having a separate toilet for the gamesroom, but this reduced space in gamesroom and increased costs, so the idea was scrapped.

The gamesroom measures 4.5m in width and 6m in length. It comfortably contains my 12' x 6' games table, and all its space underneath for storage, and also space to move around all sides of the table. There is space for book shelves and a work area and importantly a beer fridge ;-).


Our home, the sliding doors to left of garage door allow access to the gamesroom from the front driveway.


A shot of the gamesroom from open front sliding doors, showing table, with space underneath for storage, and shelves, work area and beer fridge on left wall.


Another shot of same. Since this shot was taken I have "temporarily" added two wallpaper pasting tables to allow a bit more space for terrain making (always a messy process that requires a fair bit of space to spread yourself out!) I hope eventually to include a sofa for those tired out from gaming and in need of liquid refreshment, and comfy spot upon which to recline and mull over the tactical implications before them! ;-)


My inaugural games night; a Napoleonic battle using General de Brigade rules. Pictures show myself to left, then Roly Hermans (our clubs esteemed "General"), and Brian Smaller, Steve Sands and Greg Simmonds, some of the founding members of the Kapiti Fusiliers. If I recall correctly, the game was a win for the French over Russians holding a village who were awaiting reinforcements.

One final point about the chosen position of the gamesroom means that, God forbid!, should I every have to sell up and move on, this extra room to the property has many uses that would appeal to many prospective purchases; a rumpus room, extra workshop, home office, or extra garage...

...but I ain't movin'!!!!! ;-)

Kapiti Fusiliers Napoleonic Battalion

Our local gaming club, the Kapiti Fusiliers, are very keen on their historical wargaming, and in particular, the Napoleonic era. They also have a high reputation for the standard of their painting and the quality of their terrain and display games, and have won prizes at local wargames conventions over the years.

At the time, a lot of recent gaming had involved a number of Napoleonic battles, as part of a greater campaign, using the General De Brigade rule-set. This had seen several exciting games.

During this time our "General" of the club; Roly Hermans, put into action the idea of having a club battalion as initially proposed by Fusilier Mike McGillivray, which would be painted up by volunteer members of the club. Then when games were played, the club battalion could also participate and win some battle honours.

A poll was conducted to choose a scale, figure manufacturer, and paint scheme for the battalion. This resulted in a choice of 28mm figures from Front Rank, with an appropriate historical french uniform, for our battalion of Napoleonic French fusiliers.

The nice thing about this idea was that not only could local club members take part, but so could the many "virtual" club members who join us online from around the world.

I volunteered to paint some figures and was designated 4 voltigeurs and their command figure. For those not "in the know", the voltigeurs are a type of light troop type that would protect the flank of a battalion. The idea also of doing a command figure would allow those who wished, to do a little conversion work, and add their own character (portrait-wise) to the miniature figure!

I must confess at this point I am an absolute "newbie" to this period of wargaming, and other than knowing that Wellington won at Waterloo, I do not know a lot about the period.

This resulted in a great many pleading emails to Roly, for accurate information of the correct colour scheme and uniform details for these figures. Those "in the know" would be able to tell if a collar or cuff were the wrong colour, and I didn't want to make a mistake. For this information, and help, I am most grateful to Roly.

The figures were all painted up and varnished by the individual painters, then sent to Roly, from around the world, to be based in a uniform manner so the battalion would look right on the table top.

The figures I painted were done using GW & Foundry acrylic paints, starting from a black undercoat. Varnish was brushed-on polyurethane gloss, followed by a spray coat of GW satin spray.

The pictures below show the figures I finished before being submitted for basing. So I hope you will forgive the fact that they are still perched on their painting stands.








First up, the command figure. This guy is supposed to look like me. OK so he's got brown hair, and if you look closely a slighty malformed lip, which I left on the model, as I always seemed plagued by dry lips despite almost eating lipsalves! That was enough "characterisation" for me





Next up was the cornet, or musician. This chap caused a bit of difficulty, as they typically have a more flamboyant tunic top than the regular soldiers, I guess to make them stand out on the battlefield. However, checking this model closely, the tunic seemed fairly normal, apart from large epaullettes. After a couple of paint schemes, the model was finished as you see him.


The remainder of the figures are presented in various types of dress, as I wished to present them in a "on-campaign" appearance rather than a dress parade uniform. Consequently there are mixtures of colours for trousers and greatcoats being worn, and also Shakos (hats) both covered and uncovered, and of course, scuffed and dirty shoes and trousers.













After I had completed these figures, a second batch of figures were sent for my attention. These would represent the "Tete de Colonne" (head of the column, or command group) of the second regiment. Unfortunately I didn't get round to photographing these figures before hand, but more can be seen following the link below.

You can see more of the Kapiti Fusiliers Battalion here.