Painting

The only painting I'm doing at the moment is varnishing and staining the wooden floor of the cottage extension, but that did not stop me creating my own painting backlog by acquiring a couple more sets of miniatures today.

Another box of Revell 1/72 Prussian Cuirassiers, a box of French Line Infantry, Cossack Cavalry, British Hussars, a round tower, three square towers, plus a couple of HaT miniature sets that I'll catalogue later after the floor is finished.

All in all I'm accumulating a nice waiting list for the old paintbrushes. Baby has still not arrived yet, (and if it's anything like its old man will be two weeks late!), leaving me time to draw tentative maps, design rudimentary family trees, and rough out some details of the various warring states in The War of the Himmelbad Succession. Perfectionism was tending me towards waiting until they were done before posting, but where's the fun in that? I'll post up some basic and rough bits and pieces later on today and tomorrow, to expose the process and record how things evolve.

Buildings & Babies

Well, only one of each so far :-) and neither quite done yet.

Life has been very busy these past four weeks, with the building work on The Cottage (Grand Duke Siegfried's private hideaway, wherein he goes by the monicker 'Paul') approaching the finish line, and Grand Duchess Judith approaching the due date (Feb 11th, tomorrow!) for our firstborn.

The dust and disruption got so bad that a couple of weeks ago we moved out to a holiday let on a neighbour's farm just across the valley. Since then we have been busy trying (and failing) to clean while the builders are still working, and busy hosting the in-laws. All-in-all, they do say that moving home, building your own home, having a baby, and living with your in-laws are the most stressful things in life. So to do all four at once seemed like a good idea. Luckily we broke up for half-term on Friday, so although I still have plenty of marking and lesson plans to write, at least I don't have any teaching contact hours. (I calculated that my 'A' level essays take 45 minutes each to mark. With 40 of those to do, I am beginning to wonder if I will make any headway before baby arrives and I am supposed to take paternity leave...)

So, no work as yet on the shed / studio for my gaming, model making and figure painting. The dust is so bad in The Cottage that I can hardly sit in there for more than a few hours, let alone attempt anything that needs a clean surface! (My coffee, once poured, acquires a thick film of dust within a few minutes).

I have not been idle however. A sale in a local model shop prompted me to splash out on a number of promising 1/72 scale plastic miniatures. Here's the list:

Italeri 1/72 Scale
Prussian Light Cavalry
Austrian Infantry
French Hussars
French Line Infantry
French Imperial General Staff
Cossack Cavalry
Austrian & Russian Allied General Staff
British & Prussian Allied General Staff

Revell 1/72 Scale
2x Prussian Cuirassiers
2x French Hussars
Austrian Artillery
French Horse Guards Artillery

Now, I know that these are mostly Napoleonic miniatures, but of course a bit of customising and delicate painting will naturally reveal them to instead be bona fide Seven Years War Kitschberger and Angstlustian military units. Some of those fellows were way ahead of their time in terms of uniforms and colours you know.

I am also busy gathering materials and paints for scenery, terrain and buildings. My ally in the Art Department has persuaded me on the merits of tissue-mache (must find out how to produce accents and umlauts for this blog) for my terrain squares. And Stokes Schwartz over at the Grand Duchy of Stollen has made my life a lot easier by posting up his process for making SYW buildings, which has inspired me to have a go. As for scenery, well, while writing up my histories of Himmelbad, Angstlust, Kitschberg, Busenwald etc., I have included a few historical sites such as an old Roman ruin and some Medieval castle remains, and so these will be making an appearance on the battlefields of Urope too.

I also picked up some Plasticard to see what it is like for buildings, roofing etc. If it's no good I'll try some balsa wood buildings Stokes Schwartz style.

So my gaming goals are basically to survive baby's arrival and stay smiling, before setting up a clean, dust-free space to do some figure painting and building construction. I'm aiming for two battalions for each side at first, and they'll be small ones. I can't quite imagine how my life is going to change post-baby, so all these plans may fall by the wayside yet, but at least I set a goal!

Building Kitschberg and Angstlust

Supplies have begun accumulating in the Williams household. And I'm not just talking about the mad rush to get everything we need in time for the imminent arrival of baby.

On the spare bed I have piled five red and five blue folders, a mixture of ring-binder and arch-lever. Red is for the Principality of Angstlust under Prince Ferdinand, and Blue will contain the Grand Duchy of Kitschberg under Grand Duke Siegfried. These will hold the army stats, personality details, messages sent, and the overall campaign notes. Although I aim to make this a narrative-heavy solo campaign, I do acknowledge that the stat-kid part of me loves to record data and chart the statistics of things.

Next to these folders is a big black box file, where my rules will live. Big enough to house commercial rulesets plus any house rules I may write, the box file is handy in that it can store dice, rubber bands, ruler, etc. BAR (Batailles de l'Ancien Regime) arrived in the post the other day, and I had a quick skim through over a cup of tea when I got in from work, before I had to sit down with a few dozen papers to mark. I have also put a copy of En Garde! in this box file, plus some of my own notes on duelling in Kitschberg.

Also on the spare bed is a plastic crate, which is starting to fill up with wargaming books and materials. As we are building, books are liable to get moved, separated, and perhaps even stored safely away in a box that unfortunately won't get opened for months if not years. To avoid all my wargaming stuff going walkabout, and to keep it handy and mobile in case I get a chance to do an hour's work here or there on my campaign, it's all going to live in the crate. Books by Asquith, Featherstone, Bath, Grant etc., along with flat cereal box cardboard ready to turn into buildings.

Next to the crate, ready to be stored in it, are several boxes of Ultra-Pro Card Protectors, the heavier kind used to protect cards that will see plenty of use. I have enough here to protect my deck of playing cards and a couple of hundred 'special' cards that I might create over time.

The thing I consider to be the masterstroke however, is enlisting the aid of the head of Art at the school I teach at. In my break and before and after work I now have a place to sneak off to, where I can build (and most importantly, store) my home-built terrain and buildings. Huzzah! As soon as I have anything worth showing, I'll post up some pictures.

The Process

I've not done anything like this just for my own pleasure since I was a kid, when I used to (have more time!) make up imaginary worlds and stories, draw up forces and fight battles, and write the histories of the characters and cultures. OK, so I have since roleplayed; but that was with others and for others (I was GM 99.99% of the time). OK, so this is a public blog interacting with others through EvE; but that's just icing on the cake - I'm doing this because it looks like a lot of fun!

The bottom line is - I don't really know what I am doing, and I am having a great time working it all out! The best part? I don't have anything yet. I don't have anything except this blog and the inspiration of all the other blogging folk who have made what they are doing look so interesting and such fun that I simply had to do it too.

I don't have anywhere to set up a game yet. I live with my partner and two dogs in a tiny cramped cottage, with nowhere to set up a wargame. I marvel at the photos I see of (mainly online) friends who have massive amounts of space, even whole rooms dedicated to their hobby. This is quite a big deal, but I have found a way to deal with it, at least for the moment, because.....

I don't have any miniatures yet, and I don't have any terrain or scenery. So naturally I can have fun doing all sorts of virtual and on-paper planning and design until I do acquire some.

I don't really know what rules to use yet. I have seen plenty of titles mentioned, so I will have to try a few and see. I can always make up my own.

So at this point I am so excited as everything is bursting with potential. What am I doing about it? Well...

I'm building a games workshop. More like a glorified shed actually. My partner and I joke about it and call it 'the studio'. The shed won't get started on just yet though, as it has to wait until after...

I'm building an extension to the cottage. A couple more rooms and crucially, a hallway where one side will be lined with bookshelves. Huzzah!

I'm scouting for miniatures within my budget, and terrain that I can build. I don't have much money and I need to get a pair of flexible armies together, plus paints, brushes etc. I'm sure I will buy some terrain, trees, scale houses etc. eventually, but for now I think I'll make my own. I saw a great 6' by 4' European Fields playmat by Eric Hotz, but maybe I'll try and make one of those too.

I have some rules on order. My main criteria were fun and ease of use for a novice like me, so I looked around at lots of rules before plumping for BAR (Batailles de l'Ancien Regime) by Bill Protz at Old Regime Rules. From what I have read, these rules will suit me straight away and they will grow with me as I get more experience. When they arrive I'll comment here regarding how well they suit my purposes.

So that's my current situation report. I'm off now to have a cup of tea, read a few entertaining blogs (and by gosh there are many!), and see if I can work out what miniatures I want and can afford!