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Salute 2023 – Sharing the Joy of Six, the 6mm Charity Project

Last time at Salute Nick Dorrell and I brought the Poltava 1709 game and we had a blast on a 16 feet table and even came back home with an award (more about that here) – this year we will only bring a normal sized 6 feet table. However the loss of width we more than adequately gain in the depth of this project. This time we will bring armies created not by sweat and frustration like mine usually are, but instead two armies that was created by over 50 painters during the recent lock down – a true community effort and we would like show these armies. We have further put these into an Imagination setting where we have the Kingdom of Denswe in a war against the Tsardom of Siarus.

We presented the project at the Virtual Joy of Six in 2021 and will bring the armies to be displayed at the Joy of Six in July (not as a game but for our painters and others to get an opportunity to have a look at it in all its glory).

The idea is summarised above, but there are a fair few previous blog posts covering the project that you might want to check out.

More here:

Lund 1676 and the Charity Project at Virtual Joy of Six 2021 on 4th July

6mm Charity Painting Update no 3

6mm Charity Painting Update no 2

6mm Charity Painting Update no 3

Community effort to jointly paint some 6mm armies for fun and charity!

And here a presentation of the two armies.

6mm Charity Fun – an overview of the Two Armies (first draft)

An old overview of the project

Apart from the armies that were gifted by Baccus (link to them here) and sent to each painter, we have been given a wargames mat from Geek Villain (link to their webpage here) – they produce some amazing mats (I have 5 myself), and Nick will include a copy of his Twilight of the Sun King to the eventual winner of the armies, once we have finalised how we will “get rid” off the project.

However, we would like to include more and ideally the eventual winner will be given sufficient stuff to fold out the mat, put on the terrain and play with the armies. I guess we could throw in stuff we have lying around at home, but if you fancy and find the idea interesting for your business to get some small 6mm exposure and Spreading the Joy of Six then let us know and we might even tell people about it, we would be looking for (with the prefix – suitable for 6mm scale, or size):

  1. Road
  2. River
  3. Hills
  4. Houses / Churches / Wind mills
  5. Trees
  6. Hedges
  7. Any other idea that might fit…

Happy to paint them up/base things to fit the overall look. If you are interested just contact us through the blog.

Anyway, looking forward to see you at Salute if you are going to the show, otherwise at Joy of Six (but just bringing the armies).

/ All the best

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Hobby Round-up of 2021 – An eclectic mix

A few days before Christmas I was invited to speak on Sean Clark’s podcast Gods Own Scale, where I covered some thoughts and reflections from the year that just passed (link below the picture, if you want to check it out).

https://godsownscale6mm.podbean.com/e/episode-40-the-one-with-per-broden-again/

It is always great to catch-up with Sean and it is well worth checking up his back catalogue if you are not already familiar with it.

Anyway as a kind of complement I will do a quick overview of some of the things I did on the hobby front this year (mainly an organised listing of links to blogposts). As always in doing the review I realise that I have been doing far more than expected.

The sections are

  • More 3D printing
  • Commissioning some 6mm miniatures
  • Sweden 1943 Project 15mm
  • 6mm Projects
  • The Battle of Lund 1676 6mm and the 6mm Charity Project
  • Terrain Projects
  • Fantasy Ice Hockey 28mm
  • Other Projects
  • An Awarding Year – Caesar Award (Wargaming Blog 2021) and Best in Show at Salute (6mm Poltava 1709

More 3D printing

I continued some exploration of 3D printing and came to the conclusion after a lot of printing that I should stop just printing and just keep things back until I intended to paint stuff, avoiding creating yet another mountain – this time in resin instead of lead. On the whole I really enjoy using the printer and the result it produced – it has not really reduced the amount of stuff I buy but has given me some options for doing alternative stuff. Here are few of the stuff I did do.

I printed a few ships and Max and I had a blast playing a few naval engagement with them.
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I also got a battle mat from Geek Villain for naval engagement (or wide rivers).
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Some really nice details in these 1/2400 scale ships
I also printed up a company of “Sturmis”, the Stug used by the Finns in WW2

More details on this here

Commissioning some 6mm miniatures

I also commissioned some 6mm miniatures to be used as commanders for my GNW 6mm stuff. I did 5 minutures in total, the one below shows Stenbeck at Helsingborg in 1710.

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More about that here and the other miniatures that I commissioned.

Sweden 1943 Project 15mm

Further Progress was made on my Swedish 1943 Project and I added some more tanks and armoured cars (well trucks). I also did a high level army list for O Group, the new game from Too Fat Lardies.

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More about this project here

6mm Projects

The only big 6mm project I did start in the year was the Forces in Holstein 1700 as part of the start of the Great Northern War. This offers two very colourful opposing armies and the potential for a very interesting wargaming experience – in reality there were no big field battles, but this project offers some exploration of this.

I also bought some already painted 6mm ancients that I rebased and quickly got my 6mm Ancient Punic War collection substantially increased. I also did a summary blog on a lot of the #6mmtips I have shared on twitter over the last few years. More on these projects below.

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The Battle of Lund 1676 6mm and the 6mm Charity Project

This year I took the Battle of Lund 1676 to the Virtual Joy of Six event, I ended up doing a video to present the game and also talked about the Charity Project that was completed last year. There are some links to two video that was produced to support these projects.

Terrain Projects

I did a lot of terrain projects this year most notably I did a lot of clutter, or immersion markers as I prefer to call them, for the 1943 table, but there are some generic ideas you could use for other theatres and scales. I also did a fair few buildings and fields.

These projects has allowed me to create some really immersive battlefields, like this one. Here a little video that Des Darkin did showing off the table laid out using many of the terrain elements produced this year (thanks Des).

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Fantasy Ice Hockey 28mm

I did some further work on my Fantasy Ice hockey project and we are developing some alternative rules to use. More on some conversions and some 3d printed models below.

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Other projects

Those were my main activities for the year, here some of the smaller projects that was done

An Awarding Year

I received two awards this year, the Caesar Award for the Blog of 2021 organised by Little Wars TV and also the Best Game in Show (Presidents Award) at Salute for the 6mm Poltava 1709 table.

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Here a video made by Alex at Storm of Steel covering the show with an interview with Nick and I discussing the battle.

And of course the sad news about Mike Hobbs passing earlier in the year, miss you mate!

The 6mm Charity Project and Spawn of Speed’s Tour Bus – The Slaying Hawk – Part 1

As I reported in an earlier post the Little One and I wanted to get another Space shuttle for the Stargrave/5 Parsec Stuff (see the earlier post here) so we got the 1/55 scale Moon Bus from the 2001: a Space Odyssey Movie from 1969. It really has a nice retro feel to it.

See the source image

It is a nice model but I wanted to give it a little bit of character so I did not go for the clean look of the movie (and I doubt I would do it much justice anyway). So I went with a Silver base coat and then a Sepia Wash all over then some weathering with pledge floor polish and ink and some grime wash.

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The set comes with some characterless pilots and astronauts that I threw away and replaced them with some of the Stargrave plastic miniatures from NorthStar for Pilots and some Rockers and Punks from Fornlorn Hope Games to represent the Spawn of Speed band. I have already have a set of these as shown in the link here.

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I have ordered some LED light as I thought it could be cool and light up the model from the inside and then finally add the windows. I am also going to tried to make some decals for the beer cans.

I really like these kind of diversions going a little bit crazy when you can.

The Charity Project

On another note I think the presentation of the Charity Project last week was a success and we now have kindly been gifted a battle mat by Geek Villian (link here, check out their fantastic range of mats, I have 4 and can more than recommend them) that will be included in the project and I will contact some 6mm terrain producers and ask if they want to help by giving terrain and buildings so the winner of the two armies will get a set of rules, a mat and terrain so they can sit down and start enjoying them from day 1.

Here is a video of the presentation I gave, less my voice over, if you have not seen it and want to know more about this amazing project. 50 painters creating a truly unique set of two fine 6mm armies.

/ Hope that was of some interest

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A Review of 2020 and another great game of Mutant 1984

Gosh, how do you review 2020? It was a bloody miserable year from many aspects and I think better analysts will summarise the world events like COVID-19, Brexit, American Elections and whether historical wargaming is dying. This review is more personal…

Well given all the time I have had working from home rather than getting into an office my blog activity has been really poor – this is only the 24th blogpost this year, that is about half the number of blog posts I normally do. However I do a lot of mini-blogging on Twitter and sometimes wish that I could link the two in some way. The blog posts feel more permanent and perhaps more like an achievement and gives time for a little bit more thought and wider information compare to doing tweets – I do not know.

Anyway thanks to everyone who follows this blog, the facebook group (not sure what to do with it) and/or my twitter account. All your encouragement has been really helpful this year, keep it up!

In terms of the hobby it has been a fantastic year and a few highlights for me have been playing in Jeremy Short’s Runequest campaign with some great people, attended the virtual Grogmeet that was an absolute blast and again catching up with new and old friends, hosted my own RPG on Roll20 for the Gang running a 28 year old scenario I wrote for the first Dalcon in 1992 (The Dweller in Darkness). Mike Hobbs set up a virtual paint club that I have really enjoyed and again met new and old friends for some casual chat. Thanks to all of you!

The Little One and the Others

The Little One is always up for a Game and playing with him is not something new I have discovered during lock-down but we had a blast playing a lot of games including Chain of Command, What a Tanker, Twilight of The Sun King, Men who Would be Kings, Dragon Rampant and many others. We have even got the rest of the family involved in some RPG and board game fun which I have to say is an achievement, Cheers mate!

What a Tanker in Dalarna 1943 with the Little One

Painting for Charity

I also had this idea that now seems like a no brainer about paining an army together as a community projects and try to make some money for charity. Well what a total blast that was and in 2021 we will take it further. This project actually makes me really proud and I take my Tricorne, of is it floppy hat off to all the painters who participated.

Here are some links about the project, including painting guides, etc.

Overview

Painting Guide – Horse

Painting Guide – Artillery

Painting Guide – Dragoon

Painting Guide – Infantry

Various updates here, here and here.

Overview the armies

Below a few pictures when we fought a Battle using these two amazing armies, with the help of the Twilight of the Sun King rules.

The high level plan for the project moving forward is

  • Doing a booklet with the armies
  • I would like the Army to fight a Battle at a Proper wargames show
  • Raising monies to Combat stress by doing a Raffle to win the army

More about this in 2021, again thanks to all who participated and encouraged.

Gods Own Scale Podcast

Sean Clarke re-launched the Gods Own Scale following some, I hope positive pressure, from Peter Berry and I. Sean has a relaxed style and brings out the best in the interviews he carries out, his passion shines through and the his list of guest have been varied and some new voices not previously heard, I especially enjoyed the episodes on Irregular Miniatures and Heroics and Ros.

I was invited together with Daniel Hodgson, Alex Sotheran to the Christmas special. It was a long show and I hope it came across like a few hobbyists having a good talk in the pub, because that is how it felt.

https://godsownscale6mm.podbean.com/e/episode-25-the-christmas-show/

Well done Sean!

#Grogmerp

After a long and relentless campaign of trying to get Dirk at Grognard Towers to do an episode on MERP he did TWO episodes and he even brought Legend Liz Danforth to the party – what an absolute delight. Dirk also asked me to do a “First, Last and Everything”, you can listen to it in the link below.

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Dalarna 1943

The project got some attention from the Dala Radio and it was fun to talk about the project and I wrote about that here. I have also made some suppression markers and jump off points here as well as some river assault boats, here. This is a great project and I will try to start playtesting some scenarios for a Swedish Half-Pint sized campaign in 2021. You can find the latest Swedish Platoon lists here.

Other Stuff

I also did some strange base forces for Infamy! Infamy!, more here. This is expanding the Mutant 1984 world in an early era.

I did some cool 2mm bases and that I will use to try out Mark Backhouse’s upcoming rule set “Strength and Honour”. More here. This will be my early 2021 focus.

So for 2021 it will be more of the same, I wish you from the bottom of my heart a fantastic 2021!

A bonus

But before I go, we had a fantastic game last night and I am too tired for a write-up and there are other things to do, so a few pictures from the Twitter Feed – Another Mutant 1984 diversion using a variant of “The Men who would be Kings” rules, with some freaky events.

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6mm Charity Painting Update no 3

Following on from the last update (link here) when we had about 60% completion we are now well over 80% there, with 36 of the 44 entries sent in. The Denswe side is in the “lead” with 19 of the 22 units in total vs the Siarus Army at 17 of 22. However the Siarus miniatures was sent out a week after the Denswe ones so this would be expected.

So we are waiting for another 8 contributions to complete the armies, there is really no major rush but hopefully we should be there soon. The King of Denswe, did have a letter delivered by the charming Colonel of the Klarkling Regiment giving an explanation of his delay.

A background to this project can be found here. And a number of painting guides has been produced, a good start is this one as it contains links to the other ones.

My Lord,

I pray thee foregive my tardiness in moving my regiment to your positions. We have suffered such deprivations upon our march that we have resorted to eating our horses.

My men are the finest that Denswe has to offer and they will take pride of place in the line to push back the foul forces of the enemy. I myself, will be cheering them on, though I fear not from the front lines as I had wished. Unfortunately I twisted my ankle whilst boar hunting, and I am abed, in the care of Madam Pomfroy, who has provided board and lodgings within her estaminet.

How I wish I could see my boys, in the finely cut coats, marching to glory! I shall raise a glass when the hour comes. Anyway, I must now sign off. Madam Pomfroy tells me it is time for my bed bath and I must not disappoint her.

Tally ho, and here’s to today’s fox!

Your obedient servant

Alfvold Klarkling

Colonel

Klarkling Regiment

Army of Denswe

Needless to say the King sent out a detachment to recover the Colonel and for him to heal his ailment in camp. We will present his regiment in the next update.

This update will focus on the Command Bases as we received the minatures by Sidney Roundwood this week and they are really nice indeed. I decided to do a more elaborate basing than I had done for the Denswe command bases and that led me to update those as well.

I had already seen them from a teaser photo sent by Sidney

Any way here is how they turned out.

I did a few with Trees and one with a little bit of flowing water
Painted the flat past of the base in some browns and a few layers of Varnish

For the trees I have a number of small trees ordered from China and I just add some more scatter on top.

Typical cheap end “Chinese Tree”, these are very cheap and there are better ones to get as well. Basically soak the tree with the super glue and then dip it in some light Green Coarse turf (mine is from Woodland Scenics). However it may be better to use tacky glue as the super glue causes fumes (Please be careful and be in a ventilate area, like outdoors)

And for the other type they are the railway modelling type of fir trees that when inspected closely look like the bottle cleaners I used to clean my children’s baby bottles, but again you can, if you wish make them look less so. They look fine without the scatter but for that Command base I felt obliged to do better.

Same idea, tree dab with PVA glue and add some fine turf weeds (again from woodland Scenics)

Anyway here is how they turned out in some more detail:

I think they look great! I have use my standard “trick” for doing these photos with a background as described in an old blog, link here.

As I said I added some more details to the Denswe bases too, here they are:

/I hope that was of some interest, the two armies are presented in some detail in a previous blog post, here.

6mm Charity Fun – an overview of the Two Armies (first draft)

The following draft document contains some background to the two armies that forms part of the 6mm Chartity Project that is currently in full Swing (you can read more about this project here).

The Battles that will be eventually be fought will utilise the fine Twilight of the Sun King (ToSK) ruleset. The lists for the two armies (Denswe and Siarus) has been developed by Nick Dorrell who also wrote the latest set of the ToSKrules. The key design philosophy was to create two armies that had a similar composition on the table but being totally different in terms of play. The armies developed are in this sense at a high level reflective of the fragmented information we have about the actual battlefield tactics of the two armies.  Nick has done extensive research at the Military Academy of Burgothen studying the drill manuals of the period, the King of Denswe’s (Markus Backhus) diaries and the writings of Repet Rerby after the war. The collected writings of Field Marshal Exas who then served as a Cornett in the Barnov Kuirasserse regiment has been an invaluable source in assessing the battlefield performance and composition of the Siarus army.  The writings of the Siarus Commander Drevesina that to date has been the common account for these wars has to a large extent been disregarded in line with Professor Drallop’s damning conclusions in his book about him (I know some wargamers will miss the Burning Denswean Pigs, the Siarusian Battle Hounds and the magical skills of the Tsar).

The Denswe army has a number of powerful trained charging units, but also an element of more traditional units that are wavering (i.e. lacking loyalty as allies) and an element of raw units (the fanatics) facing a more traditional army as we would expect in a Horse and Musket battle between say 1680 to 1710.  I think the stats and general gist of the army could be easily translated to whatever your rule system of choice is for the period. (Note: we will play the rules with only one base per unit, as opposed to the more common 2 bases per unit as the armies are relatively small).

The guide also contains the coat and cuff information for each regiment that was finalised before the units were sent out to the volunteer charity painters. Some changes have been made to this list and some bonus units added.

It also contains infantry standards for the regiments, these were developed with the help of our expert consultants Mark Backhouse (Denswe) and Sidney Roundwood (Siarus).

The main sources for the uniforms and flag information for the Denswe army comes from Archives of the Military Museum in Holmstock, that I had the pleasure of visiting on several occasions during 1987 and 1988.  I fondly remember the cold mornings rummaging through the collections and then spending the rest writing and referencing following by the wild evenings of dancing, drinking and singing.  Some further reference material, especially on the Siarus army, has been found from the city of Cowmos official Library of War. The collected work and the drawings of Major Nevscire on the Kuirasserse (unpublished) at the Tavapol State Archives, deserves a special mention and has been invaluable in terms of detail and to validate some earlier (often false) assumptions from the more popular Denswe sources.

Later updates of this guide will contain a picture of each unit with the name of the painter who brought it to life. It will also contain a little bit of a geographical overview

A Guide to the Army of the Tsar of Siarus

The Tsardom of Siarus has undergone great changes in recent years. The new Tsar has reformed and modernised the army from what in essence was a feudal arrangement with nobles providing foot and mounted units, to a more modern army in line with those developed in the wars between Great Tainbri and the Kingdom of Necfra. These changes have been pressed into service and has led to some problems within the army but should provide a solid platform for military success in the forthcoming campaign.

Leadership: Command of the army is entrusted to General and Field Marshall Kruglaja Drevesina. Drevesina is a flamboyant and masterful strategist and his skill in logistics in secondary to none, but he is only an average battlefield commander.

Twilight of the Sun King rating: 1

Generalnyj Bogatyj Koži (Left Wing Commander) is an able commander but his flexibility on the Battlefield is limited due to his physical health. People who do not fear losing their head say he is a Too Fat Lardie.

Twilight of the Sun King rating: 1

Generalnyj Čempion Šuk (Right Wing Commander) was recently promoted to General following a successful charge against the Horde. Unstructured and inexperienced of high-level Command.

Twilight of the Sun King rating: 0

The Tsar’s Guard: Under the command of three of the closest childhood friends of the Tsar the three Guard regiments of the Siarusian army are the premier units of the army. The Plaudetski, Carraletdinov and Kenatonov regiments are the oldest units in the reorganised army and are armed with a 1/6 ratio of pike just like the normal line units. Only chosen men are enrolled in these units and the Tsar himself often accompanies one of them in action.

Twilight of the Sun King ratings: Foot: Elite, Infantry, ‘p’

The Nobles: The Count of Xam-Denbro leads this elite regiment of cavalry in the army (Hussari). The unit is the only surviving unit of the old style of cavalry and originated from a mercenary unit raised from the heroes of Andpol after the Siege of Navien. The Tsar has a nostalgic attachment to the unit but there are rumours that once the aging Count retires his commission the unit will be scrapped. The Count is committed to show the Tsar, and his young cronies, that he has made an error converting the old-style units. Armed and equipped in traditional fashion, with heavy armour, lances, and flapping wings, and very eager to engage the enemy and prove their value.

Twilight of the Sun King ratings:  Count Xam-Denbro Regiment: Elite, Cavalry, Galloping Horse – impetuous [The unit must attempt to move into contact with any enemy unit that it can reach within its movement allowance. If more than one is available, it must contact the nearest.]

The Horse: The 7 regular Horse regiments of Garetsimov, M Hunvicnikov, Hiscyshkin, Barnov, Dorrenev, Baldiliev and Princess Andralex are the backbone of the Siarusian cavalry (the Kuirasserse). The units represent the first wave of reforms and consists of a mix or foreigner and Siarus nationals, they are well trained and experienced cavalry. The Garetsimov’s regiment was originally raised by the Gueseportu émigré Jose Di Maio. Later made a Prince of Siarus and was instrumental in helping the Tsar in building his navy including the introduction of the Man o’ War ships.

Twilight of the Sun King ratings: Cuirassier Regiments: Trained, Cavalry

The Dragoons: The new Tsar insisted that the old-style units were reformed as Dragoons and there are 6 regular Dragoon regiments of the army: the regiments of Bailvin, Earparov, Ripelev, Davisirikov, Bowtiak and Simmutov. Although the units are trained, they are still not very competent in the new tactics they have been told to use. This has also led to them having lower morale as they lack confidence in their new role.

Twilight of the Sun King ratings: Dragoon Regiments: Trained, Cavalry, Poor

The Regular Foot and artillery: The 5 regular foot regiments are the Naylosov, Blakrutov, Nillionov, Fulvukhin and J Hunvicnikov. These units are steady regular units relying on solid defensive tactics using fire power to defeat their opponents. Thus, whilst they retain pikes in the units for security against cavalry and infantry attacks the emphasis is more on firepower than shock action.

The Fulvukhin, Nillionov and J Hunvicnikov regiments are classed as Large units. These come from the most populous regions of Siarus and are larger than the others

The artillery led by the reformer Count Melepev has the latest field guns compared to the heavy artillery of old. The Count is more than sure that he can outshoot the arrogant commoner Colonel Jakgöta in charge of the Denswe Artillery.


Twilight of the Sun King ratings:  Foot Regiments: Trained, Infantry, ‘p’, (3 regiments are large) Artillery: Trained, Field Artillery

Overview of the Siarus Army

Overview of the Siarus Army

A Guide to the Army of Denswe

The dynamic King Markus Backhus has introduced new aggressive tactics into the regular army that has proven successful in many of his battle. These tactics emphasises the shock element hoping the enemy will flee the field of battle instead of prolonged fire fight. The King and his advisors are confident that these tactics will give the steady troops of his army the edge in the coming war against Siarus. All the Denswe mounted and foot units, from the homeland provinces, are using these aggressive charging tactics. The tactics is commonly referred to as Go Punching (GP)– referring to the hand-to-hand emphasis.

The small main Denswe main army are supplemented by units raised from the newly acquired Niasca province and the fanatical followers of Repet Rerby.

Overall, these troops provide their leader with a formidable army that have been the victors of many battles, albeit against smaller countries. The army marches to war confident that further victories will be achieved against the heretic Siarusians.


Leadership: King Markus Backhus is an excellent tactician who was born to rule. He can be reckless but is very stubborn and loves to win.

Twilight of the Sun King rating: 2

The left wing is Commanded by Prince Olaf Saylind Backhus, the Kings uncle. He is a solid and experienced Commander but currently lacks the skill and nerve of his nephew. His fondness for the bottle is well known in the army and often carries out his inspections being drunk.

Twilight of the Sun King rating: 1

General Repet Rerby (see more about Rerby’s Fanatics below) is untested in Battle but the King believes in his leadership.

Twilight of the Sun King rating: 0

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Denswean Homeland Horse Grenadiers: The elite of the Denswe army is the Horse Grenadiers, or the Trabants, led by Duke Heinrich von Hyde. This unit is the de facto Royal Guards. Their charge has been the main cause of many of the Denswe victories to date. A sight to behold on the battle field with their tall Mitre Grenadier hats with golden front plates reflecting the sun light as they gallop in with their charge. The Duke’s resilience, resistance, and resourcefulness in the face of danger is legendary. He fought for the Siarusians at the Siege of Navien repelling the Great Horde.

Twilight of the Sun King rating: Horse Grenadiers: Elite, Cavalry, GH, Small, Determined

Denswean Homeland Cavalry and Dragoons: The only difference between the cavalry and the dragoons in the Denswe army is how they are funded. The Cavalry units are raised by the Three Chalices church and are in general better paid. The Dragoons are raised by the Burghers are in general seen as less prestigious than the Cavalry.  However, on the battlefield their role and performance are identical.

The Dragoon units have provided drafts for the newly raised Rerby’s fanatic units, see below. This has provided some much-needed experienced personnel but it means that the regular units are understrength.

Horse Regiments: Åhlheterén, Petersson, Viskin and Mäshitalo

Dragon Regiments: Hoblund and Matthjälm

Twilight of the Sun King rating: Horse: Trained, Cavalry, GH Dragoons: Trained, Cavalry, GH, small

The Infantry: The foot units are aggressive and the success of the initial push of the infantry will be important in achieving victory, about 1 in 6 carries pikes and most an axe or a saber to use in the charge. Jakgöta’s artillery is, when it can keep up with the King’s rash decisions, a well drilled unit. Colonel Jakgöta’s steady firing at the Battle of Duln was a key moment in the rapid breakdown of the advancing Markden Army.

Foot Regiments: Matlund, Rotdin, Teijler and Polmörth

Twilight of the Sun King ratings: Foot: Trained, Infantry, GP Artillery: Trained, Field Artillery

Niascan Units (Horse and Foot): The province of Niasca has only been part of the Kingdom for a few years. The Kingdom gained control of the province in the last war and it has yet to fully reconcile itself to the province’s new circumstance. The province provides 2 Horse regiments and 3 Foot regiments to the army. These units are well trained, experienced units, using traditional tactics not the aggressive approach of the other elements of the army. However, their commitment to the army and their new commander is doubtful. The Crown Princess (who is the regent of the Province) Guard regiment has recently been renamed for the campaign and is only a Guard Regiment in name.

Horse Regiments: Freltin and Johan

Foot Regiments: Klarkling, Tomqvist and Crown Princess Noraeleo’s Guard


Twilight of the Sun King ratings: Horse: Trained, Cavalry, Wavering Foot: Trained, Infantry, P, Wavering

Rerby’s Fanatics (Dragoon and Foot): Denswe is a deeply religious nation and with the prospects of a war against the unbelievers in Siarus the nation has become inspired. The teachings of the fundamentalist preacher Repet Rerby swept through the nation and lead to many new units being formed for the upcoming crusade against Siarusian heretics. Rerby argues that the scales that God uses to balance the powerful in the world are tipped in favour of Denswe. They are convinced that they are the measuring instrument that god will use to change the balance. With their rallying cry “Gods own Scale” these fanatics will surge forward against the Siarusian unbelievers.

The followers of Rerby have formed 5 Dragoon regiments and 1 Foot regiments for the crusade against the Siarusian. These volunteers are largely untrained but are fired up by their beliefs. As loyal Densweans they are committed to using the new tactics of the regular army. Unfortunately, shortages of ammunition mean the cavalry are limited to only firing when faced by cavalry. In other circumstances they will face to charge and rely on God’s help.

Dragoon: Melblom, Milomberg, Hodgvén, Benelin and Karström

Foot: Grovgren

Twilight of the Sun King ratings: Dragoons: Raw, Cavalry, GH, Determined Foot: Raw, Infantry, GP, Determined – may only fire on mounted units.

Summary of the Denswe Army

Summary of the Denswe Army

/ Hope that was of some interest, Per

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6mm Charity Painting Update no 2

A background to this project can be found here. And a number of painting guides has been produced, a good start is this one as it contains links to the other ones.

Following on from last weeks update (link here) were we had about a 25% completion we are now well over 60% there, with 26 of the 44 entries sent in and there are many more on the way. The Denswe side is in the “lead” with 15 of the 22 units returned vs the Siarus Army at 11 of 22. However the Siarus miniatures was sent out a week after the Denswe ones so this would be expected.

The Denswe Army to date (the small bases are Commanders) and there are two bonus bases there the Horse Grenadiers and a Foot Unit (more about these in a future installment)
The Siarus Army to date (they are still awaiting their Commanders) and there are two bonus bases some Hussari and a Cavalry base (as before more later)

I said last time the small notes that have come with the models have been fun to read and put a smile on my face (thank you all for these).

Some of the notes so far…

A few of the painters has written about their experience on their blogs and here are a few I am currently aware of (let me know if I have missed or forgot any):

https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/wssblog/6mm-painting-project/

https://collectioncalculator.com/blog/painting-together-in-aid-of-combat-stress

https://andysboncingblog.blogspot.com/2020/07/across-line.html?m=1

https://kingsleypark64.blogspot.com/2020/07/rediscovering-joy-of-six-and-while-im.html

https://hereticalgaming.blogspot.com/2020/06/per-brodens-charity-project-lund-1676.html

https://www.talesfromawargameshed.com/blog/painting-6mm-figures-for-charity-and-fun

http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.com/2020/06/6mm-imaginations-for-charity.html

Thanks all for these!

This weekend I started putting the flags on the infantry and based all the other miniatures that had arrived to date. The flags were designed with Sidney and Mark for their respective Imagi-Nation. We will publish a little booklet supporting the project later that will contain information on all these flags, painting guide etc.

The booklet will also discuss the particulars with the two armies for playing them with the Twilight of the Sun King rules that Nick Dorrell has developed. Nick is one of volunteers doing a units (see the picture below).

The key design philosophy is to create two armies that may look similar in terms of composition on the table but being totally different in terms of play (remember that we orginally based this on two identical starter army sets). The Denswe army has a number of powerful trained charging units, but also an element of more traditional units that are wavering (i.e. lacking loyalty as allies) and an element of raw units (the fanatics) facing a more traditional army as we would expect in a Horse and Musket battle between say 1680 to 1710.  I think the stats and general gist of the army could be easily translated to whatever your rule system of choice is for the period.

Here are a few of the units completed this weekend (we will do a full presentation of all of them once the armies are complete, this is just a random selection).

Someone asked me last time how I add the backgrounds to the pictures, this old blog (link here) will show you the very high tech rig I am using.

Dorrenev’s Kuirasserse by Nick Dorrell
Matthjälm’s Dragoner by Matt Slade
Matlund’s Infanteri by David Mathieson
Kenatonov’s Infaneri by Ken
Grovgren’s Infanteri by Colin Snelgrove

And I almost forgot, what about the Siarus management team. Well Sidney tells me they are on their way and damn fine they look too.

/ Hope that was of some interest, Great stuff all around!

Featured

6mm Charity Painting Update no 1

A background to this project can be found here. And a number of painting guides has been produced a good start is this one as it contains links to the other ones.

So all the models has been sent out to the brave painters and I have had the pleasure of receiving 14 of the 44 batches of models already. I will do a presentation of the units in a special blog update once the armies are completed, so today is just an overview of where we are at. So the project is now about 25% complete with 7 entries for the blue Denswe army and 6 for the red Siarus army (sent out a week later). The Denswe king has a arrived and I know Sidney is cracking on with the Siarus Field Marshal. To say that I am proud of the painters would be an understatement.

Some of the many progress shots from the painters, this one from Jan Karrman. – The Karlstroms Dragoons.

I have been delighted to get the different small packs of models with small notes that has really given me some good smiles …. (just a good example below).

Thanks David for this one!

I have had some helps from the Middle One in making sure I do not mix everything up in getting on with basing them all.

The Box system was her idea and worked really well for the basing organisation!

I got my sand, paints and grasses out and got on with the basing.

Aerial photo of the bases so far

I find basing someone else’s models like holding a little baby the first time – it freaks me out. But I got over it.

Here is a shot of the models so far – I think it looks excellent. The smaller bases are the Denswe Commanders.

Ok I said I would not do a presentation of any specific units, well I changed my mind, here are 3 of the mounted ones and the Denswe King (I will do the flags for the infantry in a batch when I have more).

First out the Freltin’s Horse by Dave French
Then the Viskin’s Horse by Paul Wisken
Garetsimov’s Cuirassiers by Gareth Beamish
The Denswe King by Mark Backhouse

/ Hope that was of some interest, Great stuff all around!

Painting guide No 2 – Artillery

This is the second painting Guide supporting the 6mm Charity project that has now started (you can read more about it in a previous blog here). There will be a total of 4 painting guides, covering Horse, Dragoons, Foot and Artillery of the Baccus Wars of the Sun King Range.

We will start this one at Step 5 – which is the painting stages (I highly recommend that you read Step 1 to 4 in the First painting guide as it covers some things that are important in preparing the miniatures and yourself for the challenge, a link is provided here).

Step 5 – the Painting (depending on how you access this you may just see one picture, but it is a slideshow with the steps)

Let dry… Basing (which will not be done by the participants of the Charity Projects) is shown in Part 1.

Here is the final result

/ Hope that was of some interest

Painting Guide No 1 – 6mm Horse and God’s Own Scale Podcast

The finished article (basic paint job, will look brilliant on the table)

This is the first painting Guide supporting the 6mm Charity project that has now started (you can read more about it in a previous blog here). This is the first of 4 painting guides, covering Horse, Dragoons, Foot and Artillery of the Baccus Wars of the Sun King Range.

I was invited to Sean of the God’s Own Scale Podcast to talk about this project, you can listen to the podcast here. I am really happy to have Sean back on air and his back catalogue has some really inspiring stuff not just from a 6mm perspective. It was also great to listen to Peter Berry about Baccus dealing with the current situation and about things to come.

GENERAL NOTE: There are many ways to paint 6mm miniatures, I believe this approach is a realistic level for painting large batches at a table top standard that when they are presented on your wargames table en masse will look great. I very rarely do any more elaborate work on any of my miniatures and you may be able to get away with less and there are people whose painting is far exceeding this level. It is matter of pitching yourself at a level where you can achieve your projects in realistic timescales.

The painters of each set of horse will be given a coat colour and a cuff colour (in this example the coat will be red and the cuff blue).

This is the picture from the Baccus catalogue (link here).

Step 1 – mount the miniatures on a Lollipop stick or similar – I use blue tac but some pva glue works as well. The blue tac allows me to jump to Step 1 without waiting.

Step 2 – prime with a grey spray paint or paint the miniatures grey (you could use white or black too, but this example uses grey) – let dry.

Step 3 – use a light wash with diluted ink, I use pledge floor polish with some black ink added. But you could use any black wash, you want the black to be in the recesses and add some shadow. As you will see this approach lets us get away with not painting a few elements that can be tricky (as we just leave then black), it also creates a nice shaded effect if we do not overload the model with paint.

Step 4 – Start painting, but lets us talk about a few things I have found useful for painting (6mm):

– Brush, make sure you have a good point on your brush. I used a size 1 brush for all element of this project. You can use smaller brushes but I find then are not able to carry much paint and wear out quickly when you paint in batches (that is normally the case for 6mm).

– Paint – shake your paint well. I tend to use the paint directly from the pot. I clean the brush often in the paint cup then drag it carefully over some tissue paper (check the point) so I pick up new paint with a moist not soaking wet brush – I want to paint sharp colours once not having the paint flowing all over the miniature. Forget the milky consistency approach, paint sharp and once.

– Light – make sure you have good light. You will be able to see clearly and your eyes do not get tired. I used to use all kind of magnifiers and googles to paint in the past – it may help you but what I really needed was enough light.

– Gentle – paint as carefully as you can, but you can always repair any too obvious issues with some black.

– Mood – be in the right spirit of mind when you attempt painting these – especially if you have not painted in the scale before. Listen to a podcast and close the door – try to get into the Joy of Six!

Step 5 – Painting Steps

Step 6 – Basing (this will not be done by the painters in the charity project, but I show it here for completeness).

Hope that was of some use