The Root of All Evil $$$

I have earned a play money by selling off my old 2^nd Edition 40k figures. I have been happily mulling over how to plow these funds back into the hobby. I reviewed an older post where I had a wish list put together for ideas. At the same time I saw that Black Tree Design was having a %50 off sale on many of their Feudal and Dark Age figures. I strongly considered this but in the end discarded it because the cavalry were still full price and it would make for too big a project, cutting into gaming time.

Now I am considering getting a fleet of 1/1200 ships for Age of Sail. After some research, I have chosen Langton Miniatures. The quality is high and the price is reasonable. I also found a US distributor that has free shipping for larger purchases. I have a friend with Sails of Glory. This is a fun game and uses 1/1000 scale ships and the models are nice and pre painted. It would make sense to collect this game but my gut tells me otherwise and it is unwise to ignore ones gut!

I want to be able to paint, base and rig the ships myself. I had a small collection of about 5 ships back in the day but gave them away. I still have an unbuilt 74 gunner in my lead pile that I will put together to see if I want to do 30+ more.

This is the completed La Supreme from the GHQ website

Here is mine dug out from the lead pile. I have done some research on how to do other rigging. I need to get some smaller drills and the right thread before tackling this project. The results can be spectacular. I hope to get the hang of it and produce a worthy fleet.

Here is my copy of WS&IM from Avalon Hill. Same guy that co authored Napoleon's Battles, another favorite rule set of mine, Craig S. Taylor. I will likely add to my rule collection as the fleet grows as this one is a little tedious.

I am preparing for a Napoleonics game next weekend. We are doing the Battle of Freidland scenario for Commit the Garde. To that end, I am building some terrain. The scale of this rule set is 1”= 125 yards and I am using 15mm figures. This is a big disparity between game scale and figure scale and as such will cause some compromises when building terrain. A single building represents a small town, a tree represents a stretch of forest and my inch wide river is an 100 yard wide impassable body of water. The scenario calls for two bridges and 3 pontoon bridges. I have bridges that are way too big for the scale and am scratch building replacements. The pontoon bridges are also scratch built for the job. I used my river to judge the length of the bridge and made it wide enough to accommodate my figures to cross in march column. I did some internet research to try and come up with design ideas and the bridges are coming along as shown.

Bridges constructed with framing card, balsa wood and DAS clay. I used a strip of river to make sure it would fit.

Pontoon bridges completed using tiny dowling, framing card and foam core.

Here are the bridges with figures added. the scale problems remain but they will do the job as long as troops are not on them.

I have dusted off my airbrush. I watched a Youtube video or two recently and have been inspired to use it more often. I build a lazy susan so I can paint and spin the model. I am on holidays this week and plan to make a mess with this over the next few days!