From 2mm to 28mm, Malplaquet to Spion Kop, FB to YouTube!

It has been a bumper weekend, not for playing, but for observing the creativity and enthusiasm of other BBB players. In the space of a couple of days I saw reports from four different players on games covering four different conflicts spanning 200 years, using 2mm, 6mm and 28mm figures and terrain, and disseminated via Facebook, blogs, and even a YouTube video. Here they are:

Malplaquet (1709)

Matt Bradley has written and played a scenario for this, the last of Marlborough's 'Big Four'. On his 'Pushing Tin' blog you can see Matt's beautiful 6mm layout.

Dennewitz (1813)

This was David Lopez's first go at BBB and I'm pleased to see he says "really enjoyed the rules". He shared a nice set of photos on the BBB Facebook page. He used 6mm armies with 2mm terrain, including a lovely town and some convincingly forested forests.

Hatchie Bridge (1862)

Another Facebook report, this time from Michael Peccolo. He ran his own Hatchie Bridge scenario at Nashcon. Most BBB players use small-scale figures to fight large-scale battles. Michael used large 28mm figures to fight this small division-sized action. It looks good and it works!

Spion Kop (1900)

Finally, some Boer War action. Eric Elder has cut custom hills to reproduce the Spion Kop scenario battlefield faithfully. You can see his YouTube video about it here. Looking forward to the episode where he fights the battle!

I was actually a bit stunned to see all of these in rapid succession. I was struck by the quantity, the quality, and the range of games, figures and terrain on display. Each of them seems to me to meet the criteria I listed in my essay about the 'High Quality Gaming Experience' (one of my series of 'Reflections on Wargaming'). Those criteria are: The Terrain, The Troops, The Venue, The Rules, The Scenario, The Company. The terrain and troops all look great. Venue-wise, whether basement or garden room or gaming convention, all good. Naturally, I cannot praise the choice of ruleset highly enough. OK, I can't absolutely vouch for the scenarios as I've only played one of them, but it sounds as though they produced entertaining games; nor can I comment with any authority on the company, as I wasn't there to judge, but I'm sure all present were estimable characters and gallant gaming companions.

My compliments to Matt, David, Michael and Eric on their good work and my thanks to them for sharing it with us all.

Image collection: Hungarian War of Independence 1848-1849

Dr Szilárd Szilágyi has created a fabulous resource for anyone interested in the Hungarian War of Independence (1848-1849). For years he has been collecting images of all kinds related to the war. Many of these are freely available to view on his Flickr album.

As well as pictures of battles, uniforms and other directly military topics, there are many images of Hungarian cities, towns, villages, landscapes, etc., from the 19th century. These would be particularly useful to anyone who wants to create terrain for Hungary '48 wargames and therefore needs to know what a fortified church might look like, or a farm, or a civic building, or a hilltop castle, or a Danube steamboat ...

Dr Szilágyi is a passionate enthusiast for the history of the '48. He and I have had some valuable collaboration. Anyone interested in this conflict should be grateful to him for making this wonderful resource available to us.

 

Beautifying bases makes a difference

I rarely paint a figure these days - I regard that as precious time that is better spent researching or translating or actually gaming - but when I used to paint my own armies, I always particularly enjoyed two stages in particular: adding faces, and painting bases. Those were what seemed to bring the troops to life for me.

A couple of years ago I ordered two ready-painted 6mm armies (complete with faces) supplied by Irregular Miniatures, which I swiftly stuck on Warbases and then fielded without further effort on their naked mdf. The armies in question were my Greeks and Serbs for the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, which I used to help Konstantinos Travlos by playtesting some of the scenarios for his "Bloody Big Balkan Battles!" campaign book.

While this was functional enough, it didn't make for a great aesthetic effect. Last month I finally spent a happy four hours or so applying wood glue and static grass; nothing especially fancy or clever, but effective enough. Thus in a couple of short evenings I significantly improved two armies, to the point where I am keen to get them back on the table and into action again. The comparison shot below shows what a difference this small investment of time made:

Before and after:

Unflocked Serbs (and Montenegrins) in action, and freshly flocked on parade.

Pics of the finished Greek and Serbian armies are on Flickr.

I'm by no means the first to make this observation but it merits repetition: especially with small scale figures like these 6mm, unsightly bases can really spoil the look, and conversely, just a little effort on beautifying bases really pays off in making armies look good - an important part of the HQGE.