Back to the Future

I don't really have anywhere to post about 40K. This blog was originally about VSF, then some VBCW crept in, and just Imagi-nations stuff in general. So this is probably the place for it. But I may as well admit that this blog is just 'everything that isn't Sword'n'Sorcery'.

I haven't been visiting LAF (link) much lately. I haven't been painting, I haven't been playing, I've just been messing about with flags and alternative histories. I have at least 3 unplayed games lying about (GASLIGHT and In Her Majesty's Name for VSF, Setting the East Ablaze for Back of Beyond) that I'd like to take for a spin but I just don't get round to it.

What I have done recently is get the paints down again and do some work on the piles of lead, pewter and plastic in the loft. This has lead to me actually completing my Space Marine Battle Company (at least, as near as damn it). I have painted six Tactical Squads of Ultramarines (with some alternative Sergeants and special/heavy weapons troopers should I want to take Plasma Guns or Heavy Bolters in lieu of Flamers and Missile Launchers); 2 Devastator Squads (I had to bodge a Missile Launcher Marine with some wonky parts and some broken guitar string); and one Assault Squad (the other Assault Squad is waiting on having its ammo pouches and holsters painted brown - the last thing I have to do for the 100 battle-brothers of the 2nd Company of Ultramarines). I still need to finish a Command Squad and I don't have eight Rhino transports for them but I've done all the troops and that gives me a certain satisfaction. As 9th Edition is being released now, and as I started this during 4th Edition, it has taken me a while, and probably the army is unplayable (I gather there are now Super-Marines now called 'Primaris' Marines but I don't know anything about them, except they're 'better'), but ho-hum.

I rewarded myself with a visit to the LAF and found something that I had missed on many of my last visits. About three years ago, some of the lunatics over there decided to co-operatively build a Space Marine Chapter (link here). This would have colouring and iconography derived from the forum - the Chapter's colours would be based on those of the forum and the Chapter Icon has been taken from the artwork on the forum. The letters 'LAF', possibly in Greek form (lambda alpha phi, λ α φ ) would also form part of the Chapter's iconography in some way.

I love co-operative world-building. I'm always trying to do it, whether that's the Atlantis Campaign I was involved in, or the as-yet unsuccessful attempt to run a Ruritania Campaign. Over on my fantasy blog I've attempted to get involved in a variety of co-operative world-building ventures and even tried to start some.

So, a co-operatively-built Space Marine Chapter is right up my alley. I still have a few random Marines knocking about from my many ebay purchases building the Battle Company over the last 15 years or so, so I plan on donating a few to the cause and painting them up as members of the Lead Legion, a Chapter hailing from the Lead Mountains of Attica. Here's my take on the painting scheme anyway, with a little excerpt from the forum pages to hopefully show how the colours relate.

Space Marine originally from the Bolter and Chainsword Space Marine Painter, here - http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/smpbeta.php

I've simplified the Chapter Icon even further than the proposed version on the LAF thread. I really hope there are some transfers still in existence, because I don't fancy painting that 10 or 20 times if I don't have to. I might be able to paint a white circle to put the transfer over though!

This will I hope keep any further itch to paint Space Marines satisfied, for a little while at least.

British Army organisation

50 Brigades
150 Regiments (= 3 Regiments in a Brigade)
450 Battalions  (= 3 Battalions in a Regiment)
1800 Companies (= 4 Companies in a Battalion)

According to Journey's End that the Younger Orc is watching (he's been studying it as an English set-text), that's a guess at the strength of the British Army in France.

A company I think is conventionally made up of 4 platoons, and I believe that a platoon is generally around 30 men. So, a company would be around 120 men (loosely).

However, this is the post-1913 organisation. This is the organisation that would for example be in use in Transcaspia.

In the later Victorian period, mostly infantry regiments apparently had four battalions, two regular, one reserve and one volunteer, though this could vary quite dramatically.

At present, I have around 90 minis that are vaguely 'Zulu War British', I think. This includes about 12 in Rife Green uniforms with khaki Glengarries (UNIT/Northdale Rifles), about 36 painted up as redcoats (11 are Brigade minis with rebreathers from their GASLIGHT/Steampunk range), and perhaps 10 in khaki jackets. 11 are Dwarves in pith helmets (10 from Old Glory and 1 GW example, that presently are serving as the 'Combined Atlantean Rifle Brigade'). The rest (probably about 20) are currently unpainted. The plan currently involves painting them all as redcoats. I really don't care about the Royal Wessex Regiment and as soon as I get around to it the khaki-jacketed ones will be redcoats too, and they can all be A Company of the 1st Battalion of the Royal North Surreys (except the Dwarves, difficult to see where they fit into that to be honest). The guys in re-breathers can just be regular North Surreys in Martian Expeditionary Force gear. There's no way I'm going at this stage to start faffing about with new units. Sod it. They can all be redcoated soldiers of the Queen and that will be much easier, no matter that some of the officers have newer designs of jacket (more suited to the Boer Wars than the Zulu Wars or Sudan). So, basically (as I think there's about 65-ish) that's half a company.

Latest acquisitions

Well, it's been a quiet old time of it since October, I really haven't got any painting done, but in the meantime I have done a few other things. Had Christmas and got several groovy new gaming-related things - the GASLIGHT Compendium and the Dictionary of Imaginary Places, for starters - and with a bit of spare cash I managed to accumulate, I've ordered and otherwise bought some new minis.

First up, from Baker Company, a company I didn't know anything about until the guys at the Lead Adventure Forum recommended them, come 9 British command figures (from their Zulu War range) - an eight figure command pack, and an Ensign:

These include a Glengarry-wearing officer, who will be joining my UNIT troops as their commander, Captain Yates, allowing me a bit more freedom with what I do with my Commodore Lethbridge-Stewart figure - in GASLIGHT games, he'll probably become a Group Commander, I'd think.

The package arrived extremely quickly, and even got a discount because the original shipping charge was more than the actual postage. Great service from Baker Company!

Next, from the lead-pile of the inestimable Whiskyrat, respected denizen of Lead Adventure Forum, come some minis I've been calling 'Various Victorians and Manly Chaps (Mostly Moustachioed)'. Some are moving slightly into Pulp territory, but I don't care.

 Some will see service as regulars, some civilians, and some, very likely, as militia-types, colonists resisting the counter-attacks of Martian, Venusian or Atlantean natives.

Is it just me, or does the chap in the middle have a tiny head? I may give him a pith-helmet to see what happens, but it does really look small compared to the others. No idea which manufacturer it's from; most of these figures are Foundry I think, but I don't recognise this one.

Also from Whiskyrat is a somewhat amazing Warzone 'mini' - though the term has little meaning for something this size - a 'Mercurian Maculator', also known as 'Giant Gorilla with a Gianter Gun'.

Taking the Various Victorian and the Mustachioed Manly Chap for scale, this gorilla is about 36' (getting on for 12m) tall. Trying to justify this in game terms may be a little tricky, though in some ways the gun is the easiest bit. Obviously, it's been converted from a big gun on an aether-ship. So now I have a size for aether-ship guns - about 13 or 14'. How to stat the model for GASLIGHT however is another question.

Finally, this morning my order from Brigade Games arrived - 10 British Troops in Pith-helmets and Rebreathers, and an Officer for the same with some kind of hand-held Maxim gun, who will be my first unit of Aetherines. No pics of them yet but they're the ones I posted in October as a wish-list. well, now the wish has come true!

Thanks very much to Danny at Baker Company, Whiskyrat, and staff at Brigade Games - you've all made me very happy! 

Of course, now I have to actually paint them... expect sporadic updates!

Nearly finished Dwarfs... with pictures!

Captain Skarpvulda, Sergeant Dondershuggen, Ranger Jaegling and men of the Combined Atlantean Rifle Brigade on manouevres in South Africa, 1892

Some shots of the new round of painting - my Old Glory 'Dwarf Britannia' British Dwarfs, with a Games Workshop 'Dwarf Adventurer' acting as a guide, and occasional heavy-weapons trooper at a guess, for the Combined Atlantean Rifle Brigade - I'm hoping to get these guys into action in some GASLIGHT games soon...























Close up of the commanders























Ready to fire























Ready for anything


Nearly finished these chaps now... so I can devote some love and tender care to the other minis in my lead-pile...

Sherlock Holmes, Atlantis, and... Dwarves?

Inspired by the latest round of the Robert Downey Jr/Jude Law Holmes & Watson caper ('Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows', available at all good Kinematographic Projection Emporia and Electric Theatres), especially as it seemed to be set exactly 120 years before I watched it (like the Atlantis campaign over at the Lead Adventure Forum) I decided it would be fun to tie the two together in order to round off the Atlantis capmaign.



As a result, I uploaded this, from the London Evening Messenger of December 20th, 1891, to the LAF site, with the rest of the text as it (somewhat inexplicably) breaks off with "... German E ..." and then stops. "Empire" of course. And then some more words, which you'll have to visit LAF to find out about, probably.

Anyway and such, the idea had entered my head of there being a peace conference at Reichenbach, where the fate of the Interventions on Atlantis was to be decided. And so it is; for the next few days at least, the Castle of Reichenbach will play host to a peace conference involving Britain, France, Russia, Germany, USA, CSA, Japan, China, Spain, and the Caliphate of Khosind (a small North African state which declared its independence from France some years ago, apparently), all of which have forces in the field in Atlantis, and at the very least Austria-Hungary, which doesn't, but is keen to discuss among other topics the Ruritanian Question.

So if there is to be Peace in Our Time, with Chancellors and Prime Ministers flying by aeronef back and forth carrying pieces of paper bearing the forged signatures of heads of state, it may be that I can finally draw the Atlantis Campaign to a close. Which brings me to the subject of Her Majesty's Native Forces, enlisted as soldiers of the Queen during the campaign. I have gotten a few steps closer to finishing them, and would like to present, for the first time anywhere, a sketchy but still colourful Daguerrotype of the Morlock Allied Native Infantry Corps (part of the Combined Atlantean Rifle Brigade).



Wearing old kit from the Zulu War and only now retrieved from storage, they are a little out of place in the brash modern world of 1891, but I don't really mind that much. They'll make a fine addition I think to the Thin Red Line (or in their case, the Quite Short but Stought Red Line).

Plans obviously are now to base them, and stat them up for GASLIGHT - shouldn't be too hard, they may be Dwarves, but they're British Dwarves, don'ch'know?

Victorian history of Blackadder characters... and others

The series 'Blackadder Goes Forth' contains various references to the military of the Victorian era that I thought would be fun to put into my games.

The first thing to be sorted is the early career of General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett, who seems, at the time of the First World War, to be in his 50s or maybe early 60s (indeed, consulting the discussions of his medals on his wiki page, it is suggested Melchett may first have served in the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879). This would put his likely date of birth around 1857-60, plenty old enough to be an officer in 1890-95, the period between the Atlantis campaign (1890-1) and 'Rivets and Whimsey' (1895). So, 'Captain Melchett' perhaps? There's somewhere to start... I had imagined that perhaps he could serve in an infantry regiment (perhaps the Trumptonshires, or maybe the Great Western Rifles), but on reflection a Guards Regiment seems a better idea - maybe one of the fictional Guards Regiments from the lists...

Edmund himself, we're told, first saw action with the 19th/45th East African Rifles, at the Battle of M'boto Gorge, in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso, actually in West Africa; perhaps the 19th/45th EAR were stationed in Nigeria) in 1892. Thus, he's too young to have served in Atlantis. In the book of scripts 'Blackadder, the Whole Damn Dynasty' however, there are hints that other Blackadders besides our WWI hero have joined the British Army; so I've hypothesised an uncle for Edmund, 'Uncle Eddy', who would be born about 1864, enlisted 1884, and at the time of the Atlantis campaign would be a Lieutenant. It is perhaps to this inspiring uncle that we can attribute the later Edmund's desire to join up and see the world.

There must of course be a Private Baldrick, born around 1865, who I decided for no really good reason should be called Thomas, known as Herbert.





I also thought it would be nice if other British sitcom characters could appear; (Lance-)Corporal Jones from 'Dad's Army', approximately 70 in 1940, would have been born around 1870 (his wiki page claims it was 1870 and he joined up as a drummer-boy in 1884), and would have been old enough to go to Atlantis - as a private, of course, he didn't make Corporal until the South African Wars, I don't think. The photo shows him in a not-very accurate parade uniform, perhaps even that of a fictional regiment... As both General Melchett and Corporal Jones display medals from their previous service, it might be fun to work out if they served in the same theatres at all...








On the piece of paper that these notes are derived from, there is also the note "unexpected Japanese attack on Poole Harbour". This probably relates to the idea of having Melchett command a company of the 'Great Western Rifles'.

Underneath that it says:
*Defence of Walmington-on-Sea?
I suspect that might be from the threat of Prussian invasion.

Hmm. Curiouser and curiouser.

(all photos in this post copywright BBC, used without permission under fair use conventions)

Things and stuff

Well, May has almost departed us and hardly has my paintbrush touched paint in the last 6 weeks or so, such have been the demands of what I laughingly refer to as 'real life'.



Here is a little teaser for what will be coming up over the next few weeks (I hope) - actually it's an old WIP shot of my much-talked-about but rarely seen Colonel Hammond-Mustard, who also doubles as one of my Ruritanian officers.

He's one of the leaders in my GASLIGHT force that I'm slowly assembling; which brings me on to the new GASLIGHT Compendium - I'm hoping to get it as soon as the hard copy is out; the PDF is already available from many a reputable online retailer.

I have managed to find another unit I can add to my forces - either pro- or anti-British, I'm not sure yet. But I managed to pick up a game called "Impact" (in fact I got the expansion, "Impact - Battle for Wolf Ridge" as well) from a local charity shop. It's a funny game, there are various spring loaded weapons in the sets, and missile fire is resolved by actually firing little rubber-tipped bullets and knocking your opponents' models over; hand-to-hand is handled similarly to chess or draughts or something. But never mind, it's the figures I was after.




Within, as well as about 15 humans and some robots, armed with futuristic weaponry, there were also about 20 dino-lizardy types, mostly with weird rifles. The humans will no doubt see service for my sci-fi gaming, but the lizards might make a nice substitute for the ubiquitous Kroot Parrotmen of Cytheria that everyone seems to be doing.





There are about 15 Lizardmen similar to this, including a couple with smaller weapons. Also included in the Lizardman force were 4 larger more dino-like models with shoulder-mounted 'missile launcer' type heavy weapons, very odd affairs that seem to be made out of some kind of animal. Whether I use them as enemies or allies (perhaps Venusian Lizardmen Sepoys, for instance), or both, is yet to be decided. They may even be found on Atlantis, I suppose. I might even be able to do an entire Atlantean engagement, Lizardmen v. Morlocks, that would be fun.




Seen here with an Ironclad Brit for scale, they seem to be fine (size-wise at least). Maybe some repainting might be in order, but frankly as I'm rubbish at painting perhaps I shouldn't bother.

Thanks to the three people who voted!

The poll as to whether I should give my walker pilot a Pith Helmet or a Glengarry Cap has now closed - and, perhaps in line with expectation, it has ended with a convincing win of 100% of the (three) votes being cast in favour of Pith Helmets.

I suppose I'd better tell you why I've decided to give him a Glengarry then.

I'm hoping to use my VSF forces primarily for Battles by GASLIGHT (BbG) games. In BbG, individual units are grouped together into commands which activate together, when their group commander activates. As my entire combined British (and allied) force for GASLIGHT consists at the moment of 11 units (though many are unpainted as yet), I thought it made sense to split the elements 3,4,4 - that's obviously the most even way to do it, and if I get round to it, I might add another unit to the '3'.

As my Aetherine Group - consisting of 10 infantry, a mechanical walker (the Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine Dreadnaught I showed a few weeks ago), a steam tank (the Space Marine Rhino, likewise) and a heroic Aetherine special character in a flying armoured suit - already had four elements to it, it made sense to switch the second walker, the open-topped one I needed a pilot for, to my UNIT group, which up until that point only had two elements in it - a unit of 10 infantry, and a commanding officer.

So my entire force would be:
(Command Group 1)
Commadore Alexander Cameron Lethbridge-Stewart;
10 Uniformed Naval Infantry Territorials;
UNIT Mechanical Conveyance, 'Stormwalker';
To this, I may add a steam tank, which may be called (for reasons as yet not entirely clear) 'Mrs McNulty'

(Command Group 2)
Sergeant Jack Ironbridge, Royal Aeronautical Corps, in experimental Rapid Action battlesuit;
10 Royal Aeronautical Corps Aetherines;
Royal Aeronautical Corps War-walker 'Goliath';
Royal Aeronautical Corps Steam Tank 'Victorious'

(Command Group 3)
Colonel Reginald Hammond-Mustard;
10 troops under Major Smith, 1st Battalion the Trumptonshire Regiment;
10 troops under Captain Skarpvulder, Combined Atlantean Rifle Brigade;
10 troops under Overseer Zedeldun, Morlock Atlantean Native Infantry Corps

Some painting, but no pics yet

I managed to get some paint onto a few minis yesterday - test schemes for my UNIT 1891 troops, and the beginnings of the scheme for my Dwarf Britannia 'Combined Atlantean Rifle Brigade'.

I've been thinking about GASLIGHT because it's my intention to actually try and play some games of it this year. To that end I've been thinking about how to build, paint and stat up my forces. 10 chaps in a unit seems like an obvious place to start, with a small number of characters.

It occurred to me that, as I'm unlikely to be playing British and Ruritanians at the same time, I might be able to get away with using some figures as either British or Ruritanian. So, along with serving as Kolonel Kartoffeln-ohne-Umlaut, my yellow-jacketed Zendarian Vampire Hunter, the chap at the bottom here (from Westwind Miniatures' Vampire Wars range) could also serve as Colonel Mustard, redoubtable British commander... similarly, his companion (not shown) with a monacle and sabre might make both a fine officer for any Molvanian Jaegers under Ruritanian command, and also (cunning use of dark green jacket and trousers here) as a leader for my UNIT troops, who have essentially a Rifle Regiment uniform. No lesser personage than Commodore Lethbridge-Stewart, UNIT's commander. I think 'Commodore' is equivalent to 'Brigadier' anyway.

I didn't find out until recently that it's thought that the dark green of the rifle regiments might have been inspired by the British employment of Jaeger regiments during the American Revolution. So it sort of seemed fitting that the same figure could stand in as a commander in either army.

Because I'd also mixed up some khaki for UNIT's Glengarries, I thought I may as well get it on the Dwarfs' Pith Helmets. Not sure if it works, we'll have to see when the rest of the scheme is done (basically standard British infantry of the mid-late Victorian period - red jacket and blue trousers).

Then as I was painting a dwarf I had another idea - I have some Warhammer Dwarfs with guns, only I've never been much of a fan of using black powder weapons in Warhammer, so I wondered about making them a unit for GASLIGHT too - the Morlock Allied Native Infantry Corps. That may need more thinking about, but it does potentially mean I'll be able to field 5 units of infantry fairly quickly (redcoat Dwarfs, 'native' Dwarfs, UNIT riflemen, Aetherines, and my lovely Line Infantry from Ironclad). Quite pleased with the way my little force is developing...

VSF blogginess, day 1...

Well, it's something like day 69 of the LAF Atlantis campaign, and I'm up to my ears in VSF-ness. Which of course is one of the main reasons I started hanging out at LAF in the first place.

In recent days the subject of what VSF gaming actually is has come up a couple of times and this led to my description of it as 'rivets and whimsy' which in turn led to...

"The Extra-ordinary Adventures of 'Rivets' McGurk and Miss Whimsabella Footling" or some such. Rivets and Whimsy have become characters in their own right, and part of this blog will I hope be about them, their aeronef, Whimsy's search for her father and attempts to clear his name, their adventures in Atlantis and Ruritania, and the trouble they have with the dashing but dangerous sky-pirate Captain Horst Van Dango.

No photographs currently exist; perhaps soon I will be able to get some up. Details are sketchy too. All I know for sure is that Whimsy is an excellent markswoman (Papa taught her to shoot big-game hunting as a child) and Rivets (Robertson Douglas James McGurk on Sundays) is an aeronef mechanic; and that they're on the run after Whimsy's father is disgraced and disappears. I'm not even sure what year it is. 1890? 1900? Something like that.

Expect updates.... unexpectedly.