So after yesterday’s balls up with the Romans I went on a different tack today. First off I made a 3mm base in 3D builder and added two cavalry units to it. It printed off reasonably well apart from a weird bowed back, this is hapf a mil out so can be saved down or something. When I brought it in I realised my MDF bases are 2mm. But as it wasa proof of concept then it worked. Uses more resin, but miniatures come pre supported.
I then decided to try and integral base per unit, this was extremely fiddly and was sort of okay when I tested it at a 45 degree angle. I added the infantry units on their rears with supports, to be honest it was a total mess… I am not sure what went on. So back to the drawing board there. I finished the Gauls that I printed yesterday, some seem to be missing bits so are sitting at about 1.5mm. But as you can see from below it doesn’t really show en masses.
I am not sure on how many men these are meant to represent, but it does look like a fair few. So if I said 200 men to a base then this is a unit of 1000 warriors. It kind of looks like it to my untrained eye.
I also did a proof of concept for some woods using a bit of mdf and some clump foliage.
Today I ordered some light cavalry, skirmishers and some chariots. I will still work in the Romans as it is really beginning to bug me now.
Tonight I tried painting the Roman side of the equation. They painted up absolutely fine, but when I was painting them I noticed that they, for some reason, had a whole more supports. These proved problematic in getting them apart. I also noticed that the horses seemed to be missing some legs. As these are new to me it will take a while to get things right. It is basically 6ml of resin and 45 minutes of time.
As you can see the units are really broken up. I will try again tomorrow and see what I can do. They work better without a base. I have ordered some flexible resin to mix in with my normal stuff. It should help a bit.
Today I got the 6mm terrain under coated white. I started on the Italian houses and windmills…
I also finished painting the zealots…
Two of them failed to be included in the photo. I will add some flock to the bases tomorrow and also do some form of writing on the book and pages.
And finally as I have absolutely no common sense or will power for that matter I thought I would try something a bit different… Project Wargaming don’t just do fabulous 6mm Samurai and Italian buildings. They also do printable 2mm ancient armies… so this happened….
I decided to get a couple of sets, Gallic infantry and some Republican Romans. I was pleasantly surprised in how well these printed as well as painted up. I blobbed some green and brown paint on a 30×40 base and I now have a base of Gauls.
The Romans have their three troop types. The heavies have either the pilum or the long spear (l just forgot the name)It also comes with Equites too.
Now one thing about this lot is that they don’t have the flex of the 6mm spears. I can evidently mix flexible resin with the ordinary stuff. I might just have to give it a go
Tonight I managed to get a whole lot done on my unit of flagellants.
I was hoping to get them finished, but sadly it was not to be. Hopefully I will get them done tomorrow. Now quite often I see these type of miniatures with pale skin, but they way look atitthey were out and about throughout the lands so mine are a bit tanned.
I also managed to get the ruins successfully printed at 18% size…
While was having a mooch for things to paint then I came across the trees too. I had printed some last nightwith the reduced sized cows… yes I really am that bonkers! The trees really could have done with some supportsas there are some pancakes on the bottoms, but,they still work, and to be honest they were a test to see if they would print.
As I have decided to go for 6mm Italian wars then, as you can tell by the blog, I have been reducing 28mm buildings to fitmy 6mm.this was because I couldn’t really find any suitable ones to print. Now if you remember, a while ago I found a guy making 6mm Samurai, I didn’t bother looking in the moderns section. Outof the blue today YouTube decided that I would want to watch one of his videos, lo and beholding January of this year he made Italian style buildings, so asylum can imagine I am quite chuffed and am printing a villa, church, some barns and smaller farm houses right now. I will photograph them tomorrow. You can watch the video below…
Ma’am, it pains me to inform you of some severe losses that took place on Monday 2nd August near the town of Khufurah.
A mixed force of naval ratings from HMS Norfolk, Sudanese and Egyptians met with terrible losses and there are unfortunately few survivors to recount the terrible events.
The force had been tasked with scouting an area west of the town of Khufurah. They marched out of the town at 14.00 and were last seen at 14.30 as they crested a rise.
Unbeknown to all the Mahdist’s had returned to the area. As the Sudanese approached the first water hole a number of Dervish leapt from a hidden defile and charged the right flank. With military precision they wheeled and gave fire halting one unit with terrible casualties…
Sadly the second enemy force made contact and pushed the line back, butchering the wounded as they fell. The Sudanese withdrew in good order, but the enemy were on their heels and killed them to a man. Unfortunately Colonel Smythe and his adjudant Captain Smith were among those that fell.
The naval ratings swung their gun to protect the flank, but unfortunately major Twitt marched his men the way they had come and stopped the gun from firing. Unfortunately this occurred numerous times during the short battle.
The Egytian force nearest the threat did a smart about turn but unfortunately the horrific scene in front of them meant that they were unable to fire as they were shocked to the core.
Panic rippled throughout the Egyptian forces as unit after unit refused to obey their orders, Major Twitt managed to clear the way for the gun, only to March in front of it again momenrs later…
Cavalry appeared out of the smoke and attacked the right hand unit, who held for a while, but assaulted on three sides, as they were, then they too fell.
The gun opened up on the enemy to their front whilst Twitt contemplated his next move. It inflicted heavy losses on the unit, but it’s morale still held as they sensed victory.
As more cavalry appeared and threatened the rear of the gun, the gunners brought it to bear, but unfortunately the horsemen were upon the gunners, who with valiant effort pushed them back even though outnumbered three to one!
This gave the hard pressed matelots a chance to fire at close range, enough to cause the cavalry to pause, but unfortunately with enemies on all sides and Twitt once again masking the gun, things were very quickly over for out forces.
Wolsey has advised me that another large force is to be sent into the area to Bury the remains of our troops and to locate the forces who perpetrated the defeat. They will not escape justice.
I remain your must humble subject,
Colonel Moutard
This game was an absolute hoot, with sod all chance of an allied victory. Well the latter is not entirely true. With hidden set up for the Mhadist’s it makes it tricky to form a strategy, however if I had set up on the left flank instead of the centre then I wouldn’t have met any forces on turn three. Twitt was an absolute blast. If I rolled a one for his unit then Joe got to order him about, this happened four times in six turns, then again at the end of the game. I knew I was pushing my luck fielding an Egytian force, but things happened pretty much as they did back in the Sudan.
We are doing a double point game against Mr Babbage next week… we will see how that goes.
Well today I printed a couple more buildings as well as some more miniatures. I also decided to shrink the wagon and horses too, with absolutely no idea whether it would work or not… it did!
So we now have the defence tower and coaching Inn added as well as the super teeny tiny wagon. The biggest problem I had with it was glueing the wheels on. Because I could then I printed another one, just for the hell of it.
Joe came over again today and let’s say the old addage of Pride cometh before a fall certainly was true today. I was well and truly trounced. I will write it up tomorrow. Needless to say her Majesty Queen Victoria will not be impressed by the news from the Sudan.
So today I did a fair old bit of slicingon the resin printer as the FDM one is having a bit of a lie down, looks like one of the back springs needs replacing.to be honest mostly it is still the stock setup.
So after a bit of a false start with the sails, I ended up with this little chap. As per normal he is 18% original size. Again an awesome little model from Iain Lovecraft’s ‘The Frost’ Kickstarter….
Amazingly enough I alsomanagedto print some treesto go with the 6mm forces. These are from the guys who did the 6mm Samurai and are a freebie… there were in fact a larger number of the trees, I chose two and because am paranoid I splayed out the base of the deciduous one in Mesh Mixer.
I will have to add the name of the designer of the trees tomorrow as I honestly cannot remember of find them again.
I decided that the Flintloque miniatures had sat there long enough so I did some more work in them this evening too.
Tonight I decided to get my finger out and do some more on the 6mm Samurai. For these actual Samurai I decided to do them lots of different colours from yellow through to black…
We went out today and found some of the lesser spotted Shetland Wallabies and a Shetland Emu…
I also got a couple more untis of the 28mm Renaissance undercoatedtoo. I went for some flagellants and some more pikes.
And finally I have printed a hundred strips of Arqubusiers for Joe and I… incidently we are having another game on Monday afternoon… huzzah!
Today our game of ‘The Men WhomWould be Kings’ took place between Joe and I. We went for 24 points as per normal and then after dicing for officers rolled on the scenario table. I was tasked by Wholsey to take the Fort at Khufurah which was sadly surrounded by lots and lots (it seemed) of enemy combatants.
Luckily for me the points of the defender dropped to eighteen causing Joe to lose his two cavalry units.
Left to right, are the guards, denoted by their red tunics( yes I know they didn’t wear then, but it let’s me see who is who). Next is a 9lb artillery piece, followed by a unit of Egyptians and finally the Durham’s. The officer in the guards was a brave chap, the Durham’s was as bald as a coot and sadly for the Egyptians their officer was rather useless. I had reduced the Egyptian points to 4 to allow the Guards to gain sharpshooter, hitting on 4+. The Egyptians ended up being poor shots as well as unenthusiastic meaning I needed to roll a 9 on 2D6 to get them to move at all.
The Guards headed off onto the left flank whist the Durham’s went right. The gun and Egyptians decided it was still breakfast and sat still.
A unit of Hadendowah bounded forwards and received volley fire as well as a clobbering by the gun. They made it no further and were destroyed to a man. The Ansar gun maneuvered to try and get a shot at the Guards but they moved out of sight, before the gun got a chance to fire.
The Egyptians eventually decided to move and were supported by the gun (who had had their cup of tea and jam on toast) and had already moved to support the right flank. The Ansar gun failed to fire and unfortunately was in range of the the Royal Artillery who made short work of it.
With the centre free of a threat, the Guards came right and the Egyptians bolstered by the presence of an elite unit bounded forward turn after turn, only to be halted by some sneaky chaps hiding in a mosque. Sadly they got no further as although Joe’s dice rolls were poor, they did enough casualties to cause them to turn tail and run for home. Sadly this meant the guards now got shot at too
On the right flank the Durham’s and gun made short work of the troops hiding in the trees
These two units then swung around the buildings to their front to support the Guards and threw everything they had at the Troops in the mosque… as I said, Joe’s dice were bad, mine in the other hand were not…
The Mosque did not last long, neither did the troops inside. With a last gasp the troops in the fortification sortied out and made straight for the Durham’s. The brave Northern lads managed to wheel and meet the foe, bayonet to sword and spear. They took four casualties but Miraculously they held and actually pushed the enemy back, leaving the field open to volley fire and a clobbering by the gun.
All in all a good little game. First one in about 2 years.
This evening I managed to get the base ready onto the pikes and other 28mm Renaissance miniatures.
Rubbish photos again!
I also printed off forty arqubusiers, and it was then that my epiphany arrived. If you recall, a week ago I suddenly had an issue printing 6mm miniatures. Today I think I know why… It seems to be the supports, and the way they work. The bases were too close together so they formed a solid and more importantly large base.
I printed an earlier set of models that I had had partial success with and when I went back to check part of the base was hanging off the plate… suction on a large area can cause problems with the print sticking to the FEP instead of the plate…
The sticks are the remains of the supports. There is a definite bend in the back bit and you can really see in the foreground where there are ghosts of miniatures. This bit was sitting at about 45 degrees to the build plate. So I went back onto the computer and, as the pikes worked without support, I just went for it… absolutely no problem at all. Forty arqubusiers came out absolutely fine.
So lesson learned… supports on 6mm miniatures are a bit of a no, no.
