Just a Teeny Tiny Project......

I read a book, I tend to do that sometimes, this book was about a chap who served with the Spanish Foreign legion in the civil war. In one section of the book, he was talking about an annoying Republican armoured train, that kept trundling down the railway track from Madrid, shooting up their  positions, and then buggering off back to Madrid.
I got thinking, thinking is dangerous, thinking makes you go Googling, and you find this

http://vehiculosblindadosdelaguerracivil.blogspot.com.ar/search/label/TRENES%20BLINDADOS

Uh Oh, more Googing required, to find some suitable model railway gubbins.

Woooooooo Woooooo

I worry about myself sometimes :-)

Italian Newsreel Footage - Nationalist Troops Advancing Towards Madrid

One of the many pages I follow on Facebook posted the following video, shot by an Italian newsreel team, it has some interesting images of Nationalist troops on the road to Madrid. Lots of Moroccan troops, and it seems that any dodgy old truck was pressed into service

Worth a look.

I will finish off the Moroccan painting guide next time, still gathering information on rank markings etc.

Moroccan Regulares, A Sort of Painting Guide.........

As threatened, the first part of my attempt at a painting guide, now its not your run of the mill painting guide thing, more of a gentle nudge in the right direction, aimed at getting any interested parties started in painting up their Moroccan troops.
I don't intend to show folks how I do my painty stuff, with a selection of step by step photos, everyone has their own approach to painting, mine is slow, and laboured, and there are a hundred and one better guides hiding out there in internet land, for folks to refer to.
What I will do here, is to give you a selection of images, all freshly "borrowed" from various sources, and an idea of the paint colours I have found the most useful to get my stuff to look the part.
Grab yourselves a cuppa, its gonna be a long old post this one.

So lets crack on, and have a dekko at your standard Regulares type soldier

Freshly pinched from the pages of the Bueno uniform book, these two plates are a fairly good representation, 

and they make a useful starting point for a general overview of the Regulares basic uniform.

Righty ho, lets go, and first off, after giving my figure a good old clean up, I blast em with a burst of white undercoat, yes thats right, white. Now I fully understand that black is the colour of choice for undercoating figures, but I simply cannot work with black, my eyesight is just too poor to cope.

My starting point, I always do the flesh bits first, and here are the two palettes I use.

Moroccan flesh is a bit darker, you could in fact go for the full black African on some of the figures, but most of them will be more milky coffee coloured.

I basecoat with either the medium flesh, or the dark flesh, just to give a little variety, and once the base has dried, I chuck on the Gryphonne Sepia wash, this helps to pick out the shadow areas on the face. I then go in, with a shadow wash using Flat Brown and Arabic Shadow this deepens the shadow areas, I let it all dry out, then using a darker colour ( usually a dark black brown), I fill in the eye sockets.

First highlight is the original base colour, I then build up the highlights using mixes of the base colour and Flat Flesh, the very final highlights are in Pale Flesh, but go very sparse on these. To finish off, I do the eyes, and any facial hair.

For a bit of variety, I have a second flesh palette I use

I replace the Dark and Medium Flesh with Brown Sand as a base, and then work the colours the same as before.

Next step, I tend towards the trousers, now the Regulares are described as wearing "Lentil-Coloured" trousers, and I see this as a sort of sandy yellow colour, so here's my trouser palette

Tan Yellow provides the base colour, followed by a Gryphonne Sepia wash, once again I use Flat Brown to deepen the shadows, and mix up a Tan Yellow/Flat Brown wash, to help fill out the lighter shadows, if the areas are deep shade, then a wash of Dark Rust helps to deepen them a bit more.

First highlight is the Tan Yellow base again, and I use mixes of Tan Yellow, and Pale Sand to bring the highlights up, with a final  tiny highlight of just Pale Sand to finish.

Next up, the shirt, and here is the palette that I use. For a bit of variation, I use Buff, DarkSand and Pale Sand for a base, then its a wash of either Devlan Mud, or Gryphonne Sepia, sometimes I add a deeper shadow using various shades of brown, then begin to highlight up using the base to start, and then work up by mixing in either Silver Grey, or Ivory

The following image shows both the trousers and shirt quite well

Sometimes the figures will be wearing the short tunic, or the Chilaba (Djellaba) hooded coat, the tunic appears to be the standard greenish khaki favoured by the Spanish Army, the issue Chilaba is in the same shade, and for these two, here is the palette I use

The base colour is mixed up using Brown Violet, and either Green Brown, or Khaki Grey, varying thses mixes wll give you a bit of variation. This is followed up by a wash of Devlan Mud, and sometimes I use the Dark Brown Model Wash. Deeper shadow is added by mixing Brown Violet, and Black/Brown. I then work the highlights, starting with the base mix, then adding Khaki to lighten, with a bit of Pale Sand.

To break up the look of your units, you can paint the Chilaba in various shades of brown, as many troops brought their own Chilabas with them, just do a google search for some ideas.

You can see in this period photo, the variation of colour in the Chilaba.

Headgear next, and we will start with the Tarbush (red fez) and here is my red palette

base coat is Plain Red, I wash over this with thinned down Burnt Cadmium Red, to give a variation, I use Carmine Red as a base as well.

Highlights are worked up using the base, and Vermillon, final highlight is a little touch of Orange Red around the edges.

The Rexa (Turban) is painted up with this selection.

Base coat, either Silver Grey, or Ivory, followed by a Devlan Mud wash. I use the two greys to add a bit of depth to the shadows, then highlight up with the base, and a mix in of Offwhite, with a final pure Offwhite highlight to finish.

Puttees, can be either khaki, or blue

Heres my blue palette

Prussian Blue base, with a wash of Dark Prussian Blue, I use the Dark Sea Blue to add depth into the shadows, then highlight back up with the base, and lighten it using Pale Sand.

The Khaki version, well thats just Khaki, shaded and highlighted.

The boots get a coat of Pale Sand, and a Devlan Mud wash.

Then its onto the Ammo Pouches and webbing, grab yourself a handful of leathery brown shades, here are my favourites

I base coat using Light Rust, Leather Belt, and Light Brown, darken the shadows with Dark Rust, and highlight up using the base, and mix and match paler shades to give that battered leather look.

Finally, the haversack

Base coat of either Khaki, or Hammerfall Khaki, and a wash of Gryphonne Sepia, or Devlan Mud, I use thn washes of the Black Brown to add a bit of depth, and then lighten up with base coat highlights, and Pale Sand.

You can also paint the haversack, as a leather version, as these were also used.

Weaponry, well I expect everybody has their own favourites to do the guns with.

So, a few pics to help you along the way

Next time I will add a few more fine detail points, like rank markings, officer uniforms, etc, until then I hope this post will help folks on their way, to painting a Regulares force.

Cheers

A Little Bit of Light Reading......

Wargamers, specifically figure gamers, as opposed to the couch potato crew, with their rapid digits and computerised gizmology.
You've gotta love us, we come in all shapes and sizes, with regards to how we approach our rather strange little hobby, grown men, playing with little toy soldiers, freaks, geeks, nerds, you name it we're called it!!
But, do you realise, that in amongst the hobby, there are some incredibly talented painters, and model makers, and, some incredibly intelligent writers, and thinkers.  We all take a different approach to our gaming hobby, for some folks, its the simple joy of turning up at a club night, or gathering a group of like minded mates together, setting up a table, deploying two armies, and throwing a few dice, its a chance to relax, have a laugh, and enjoy a bit of socialising with like minded mates.
For others, it can become an obession, you get transfixed on a particular period of history, or a famous general, or perhaps you just have to recreate Waterloo in 28mm ( Yes Chris Cope, I a looking at you here!!)
For me, its a mix of the two, I love to get together with the New Buckenham gang, after a stressful week at work, and just chill, throw some dice, and listen to the banter that does the rounds, but I have this obsession you see, that one particular dark period of a certain country's history, that still echoes on today, for me its..............

The Spanish Civil War 1936-39

Its a common misunderstanding, that this war was between the Fascists, and the Communists, and if you boil it down to that simple conclusion, then you are completely wrong. This war is so much more than that, and to try and understand its complexity requires a bit of reading.
You can of course, just paint up two opposing forces, and find a suitable set of rules, then get on with a game or two, or you could immerse yourself, and read, yes thats right read, and I am not talking about a google search, I mean real paper books.
As this blog is probably going to be very orientated towards this conflict over the course of this year, I thought hey why not throw a few options onto the table, for folks to have  a look at. Now the books I'm going to suggest, are not Ospreys, or a quick whip through the salient points, but more in-depth, and not all of them are dry military tomes either.

So, good starting point

Beevor's book is a great start, it covers the causes that build up to the conflict, the war itself, and the aftermath. Some people say it has a left-wing slant, but I did not feel that at all. This is the one book in my collection, that gets referred back to on a number of occasions.

Ok, I will admit, its not an easy read, being a more scholarly and serious book, but it does cover the war in a great depth.

Ok, so there's a nice intro to the war itself, but what about the country? Good old Spain, favourite tourist destination for the Great British sun seeker, with its high rise hotels, endless beaches, and geared towards keeping us happy, a little taste of England on a foreign shore, where the sun burnt examples of your average moronic Brit abroad can be seen, shambling about looking for "egg and Chips" pointing at the beer taps in the "English Pub" shouting Oi Pedro Uno bigo beero poor favor. Sadly this tends to be the only taste of Spain that most of us have experienced, and it is so far removed from the reality. 

So here are three books, that will give you some idea about Spain, its people its customs and its turbulent history

All three books have been written by people, who have lived, and worked in Spain for a number of years, and if you are seriously interested in trying to understand the Spanish Civil War, then I whole heartedly recommend picking up these three books, and having a good read. Because Spain goes a whole lot deeper, and to understand what made a nation split itself in two, pick up guns, and kill each other, requires that you peel away the surface layers, the gloss that hides the ugly truth lying beneath, and get to the rotten heart of the subject.

I coud list a plethora of titles that are worth reading, and maybe along the way I shall touch on a few other titles worth looking into, but for now, start with Beevor, and I would say the Giles Tremlett book as a companion read

I would love to hear what other SCW gamers think on the subject.

I have a Cunning Plan...........

So, projects, those ideas that randomly pop into ones head, usually after you have been to New Buckenham Historical Wargamers  https://www.facebook.com/pages/New-Buckenham-Historical-Wargamers/302874659765417  (please feell free to pop over and like us), or when you have been perusing the selection of forums and blogs that we all seem to have bookmarked in our favourites folders.

Well I have narrowed my choices, down to just two, yes really just the two!!
Both projects have littered my desk at various stages over the past few years, and as I am now at the stage, where hobby spending is very limited, I have to tighten my belt, and concentrate on the things I have the most stuff for.

2015, will be the year of Pyrrhus, I have the best part of a Basic Impetus in 28mm nearly finished, and that little project has its own shiny little blog  https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1942964967327946473#overview/src=dashboard
This one has trundled along, jumping on and off the desk, when it should have been done, and dusted about, ooohhhhh about 2 years ago!!

The other project, my long suffering Spanish Civil War in 28mm, once again. Been backwards, and forwards with this one, and have left it stuffed in a box, under the desk on a number of occasions, so now its time to show it the love and respect it deserves.

This time round, I will update the two blogs, on a regular basis, and may even include some "shock,Horror" VIDEOS of me, doing things, you know flocking, scratching, a bit of converting.

So here goes

2015,  GAME ON

2015- And So It Begins

New year, new resolutions, or so they say.
I never make resolutions, I cannot stand the crushing disappointment, when after two weeks of trying, it all goes to bits, so, I make plans instead, elaborate, in depth, grandiose, and suffer the same crushing disappointment when they don't reach their dizzying heights, but its fun trying :-)
   I am always harping on, about my grand Spanish Civl War scheme, the impressive game that will appear at a show near you, one day soon. Well this time round I have scaled down the operation, and instead have decided to complete a couple of forces for this, so what follows will be a series of postings abut the journey, to put together the two starting forces.

For those of you in the know, so to speak, "Chain of Command" are a WW2 based platoon level set of rules, from the TooFatLardies, an organisation which seems to be the Marmite of wargaming, you either love what they do, or hate them, as I am putting together forces for the rules, you can obviously see, I am a Marmite fan!! I like what they do, I find the rules a refreshing breath of fresh air, that I find is sorely needed in gaming circles. The people behind the rules are very supportive, and any questions are answered through their active Yahoo group, or through their own forum, they also have some very good instructional videos on YouTube, running through the rules, so you can see them in action.

Chain of Command Espana, is a series of articles from Rolf Grien and Jim Hales, that enable you to build forces for the Spanish Civil War, and pit them against each other using the CofC rules, with the added bonus, that they are FREE, yes, all you need is a set of CofC rules, then get your butt over to here 

http://toofatlardies.co.uk/blog/?p=2187

and grab all the bits you need, now how generous is that!!!

Jim, and Rolf have done a fantastic job with these additional rules, and they are an excellent starting point, for gamers to enjoy platoon level SCW games, in fact, you really don't need to do anything else, as they are quite comprehensive. I will of course, add my own touch, because I'm a tosser like that, and just have to tinker, and will include any little bits I have added on here.

So there's the basics, now lets start building the first force

Moroccan Regulares

If you want to play along at home, you will need to pop over to here

http://toofatlardies.co.uk/blog/?p=2261

and download the PDF

So lets get cracking

Dodgy looking bunch? they certainly are, and  rightly feared by the Spanish people , the Regulares came across as part of the Army of Africa, well trained, ruthless and efficiently deadly, they proved to be a very important asset for the Nationalist army. I will cover organisation and tactics in future articles, as this first little taster, is just around collecting some suitable figures, for the game.

Right kids, get that PDF I mentioned earlier, and lets have a dekko at the starting force required, to build ourselves a Moroccan platoon for CofC

Basic starting point, and we are going to require

4 command type figs, two LMG teams, and 34 Regulares with rifles etc

So far I have

Hmmmmm, not enough for even a basic platoon :-(

Not too far short though, which is good, so just a few additions to make up the numbers. Now most of my boys are from the good old days, when I ran Anglian Miniatures, and these lovely figures are part of the Empress Miniatures range, a great starting point for any budding SCW gamer.

I have a handful of conversions, using Artisan Goumiers, with suitable headswaps using Turban and Fez heads from Empress.

Of course I will want to add some more, I would use more Empress figures, but I like a challenge, and a bit of variety in my units, so its off a surfing I went, to find some more suitable figures (victims) to add to the force

Northstar Miniatures have Moroccans, they also have some of  the worst pictures around,

I cannot tell if the figures are nice, or horrible, but they look useable, so I shall get a pack.

Artizan have some stuff in their March or Die range, which may suit purpose

I can get away with these boys too, and no headswaps required here.

These two packs will make up the numbers, and give me a few extras to "experiment" with.

Basics, sorted, well sort of sorted, I will have to scratch a M22 Hotchkiss LMG to give to one figure, so i get the two required LMG teams, easy peasy really.

Now part of the fun with CofC, is the chance to add some support units to your force, so back to the PDF and. lets play about

Loads of cool stuff to pick from, of course its not a simple matter of "ooohhhhhh I'll have one of them, and one of them, and four of those" and I won't get into support choices, and how they work right now.

Some of these support options need litle more than a note on your force organisation, to say they have them, but others, well they will require a bit of lateral thinking, and a lot of lovely converting to get sorted.

Now I have a few of these options already, but want to add a few little bits of my own creativity to my force, and here is what I have planned.

On the left, "The Caid", he is simply an old Anglian/Empress figure I had laying about, I married him up with an eBob horse, and will add some more horse funiture to give him a more exotic look.

Next man along, the loader from the LMG team, the ammo will get removed, and replaced with a rifle, hey presto, instant sniper,  the third figure, well he is an old Mongrel Minis Afghan, he of course will lose his AK47, and instead will have an open hand to replace it, lying next to him, will be a wounded figure (conversion) and he will act as the medic, signalling for a stretcher team to come over to collect the wounded man.

A couple of the rifle armed figures will get scratchbuilt V-B launchers added

A little bit of brass tubing will suffice for this.

and lastly, well I want some Mounted Moroccan scouts, and this is proving to be a bit difficult

My solution? I am going to use these!!! From Footsore Miniatures, mounted BUF.

Yes, seriously, they will of course get executed, and have some suitably Moroccan looking heads added, and I will mess about with the rifles, and horse furniture, but I think they will look ok.

So, there we go, the build up begins, and next time, we shall have a look at uniforms, and a bit of advice on the paints to use.

until next time, keep painting 

Guess What? .............28mm is Not a Scale!!

Seriously, its not, and I am being perfectly honest here.
28mm, this is 28 millimetres, or 2.8 centimetres, odd as it may seem, this is a measurement depicted in the decimal, where 10millimetres make up one centimetre, and 100 centimetres equal one metre. Scale you see, is normally depicted as a percentage, or a fraction, where you reduce the original, down by the percentage, or fraction, to give you a scale, so where you see 1/72nd as a scale, what this tells you is 1  scale inch = 72 real inches, if its depicted as 50%, then its the original size divided by two.
Now, lets get picky, because picky is the theme for 2015 ( Happy New Year BTW)
gaming figures, 28mm to the eye!!!! to the what? Oh yes, to the eye, because thats the way we measure the height of a person, Hmmmmmmm not when I was measured at the hospital last year, they seemed to think that height meant measuring me from the soles of my feet, to the top of my head, they even had this natty gadget to do that!! ( I'm 5ft11in)
So in reality 28mm figures, to the eye, or more like 30mm tall to the tops of their shiny little heads.

Unless of course, you have A sculpt by Mr Hicks ( on the right) then you do have 28mm, top of the head. The other chap is from Fenris, and he shows the 28mm to the eye quite well.

Now, lets confuse the issue, because you can also get "Heroic Scale" figures, WTF does this mean?, well it seems that heroic means taller than 28mm, perhaps up to 32mm, (TOTH) and muscular, in a body building, big fucker kinda way.

So, lets now go completely fucking mental,and look at scales, because my biggest bugbear, and its the scale modeller in me that makes me this way, is the fact that, no one has a clue what they are talking about when it comes to what scale works with 28mm, 30mm, 32mm Heroic, normal, whatever figures!!!!

Its 1/56th, no its 1/48th, no your are all wrong its O Gauge, no its 28mm scale. arrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, FFS

Lets go here

http://scalecalculator.appspot.com

Its a thingamabob, that calculates scales, ohhhhh how handy.

so we chuck in 72inches, thats 6ft in real life, and the scale comes out at 1/65th, for a 28mm height,

So. lets try 1/56th scale

Hmmmmm, 32.6mm

Now, I have a very handy bit of desk top kit, a cutting mat, that has scale measurement rulers printed on it, and one of these just happens to be 1/48th, the scale that a lot of gamers tell me is the right one for 28mm figures.

oh look, my 28mm (TOTH) measures out at a tad under 5ft scale height, using the 1/48th ruler, bit of a shrimp then.

Now, lets use an Airfix 1/48th scale figure as comparison, he's a nice 6ft scale height, and a fair bit taller than his little mate.

Ahhhhhhhh, now we can cure this problem, because we can use...........A FUCKING SLOTTABASE

No NO NO NO NO NO, I don't care how often people tell me this is the right approach, bunging figures on a slottabase, then standing them next to a comparable vehicle, with no base at all, proves fuck all, apart from the fact that you are stupid

Look at this picture, the slottabase adds a scale 6 inches to the figure's height, and he creeps to just over 5ft, now how often do you go standing on a 6 inch block of wood, to compare your height to a vehicle? Strange as it sounds, you tend to be standing on the ground, unless of course you are into wearing stilleto heels.

So lets recap, 28mm is not a scale, its also not an accurate indicator of figure height, if used in conjunction with the phrase 'to the eye"

1/56th is not the right scale, neither is 1/48th, if you apply an element of scale modelling common sense, then the correct scale is

1/61 

Of course, all of this is academic, as the gaming figures we use, are not in scale, in  fact the only thing we can use to calculate the scale, is the quoted figure height, converted to the relevant scale. Figures are varying in scale, from heads, to hands, to heft, to height, there is nothing consistent about them at all

So after all of this ranting, what is the conclusion?

IF IT LOOKS RIGHT, USE IT

Dear god, no wonder us plasticard scale model butchers despair

Until next time folks.