When you apply the adhesive paper you could have some spaces not covered by the sheet. And under there is white polystyrene, very evident the difference. So is best to find a colour similar to the bricks and paint the edges.

Even for the forex you have to do the same thing. In the end of the table you can see a Hello Kitty bag. It isn’t essential to make borders, but maybe it can be useful.

While Fabio was around Bologna, he saw a viaduct and took a picture. He holds that his viaduct is not a English one but a Bolognese one. Flyton’s viaduct is built in Bologna, innit? So, Flyton is in the land of tortellini? Or this type of construction is only typical of England?
Well, I found the answer. Viaducts are a Roman thing, because we invented this use for arches. And nothing more 😉

We are working for you! The man from Bologna have involved all his family for the sacred duty to build a viaduct for Flyton. You can see in their fierce look a determination to work until the last brick will be fixed! Even children are ready to cut and paint. Well done!

On the other hand you must think about this man while he persuaded his children to pose for this picture, and his wife while took the picture. Madness caused for too much lead is evident! And I’m guilty for this heavy duty about polystyrene and card.

The building go on. Here you can see the printed parts on adhesive paper, cut to be ready.
And for parapet, Fabio bought a forex sheet (a semi-rigid sandwich: two cardboard with sponge inside).
More on arrival through mms!

We all have got a problem of measure…

I’m building my scenario for 28mm (Flyton) and Paolo (RoninClan) is building his 1:144 Japanese scenario per MEKA. We have got our game pieces but we want to put something around them because the world is not flat and our pieces move in a three-dimensional world. So we are looking for something compatible with them.
There are a lot of miniaturised worlds, each one with his characteristic and collectors. With our soldiers we have some scales called 10mm, 15mm, 28mm and so on. In train modelling world we have various scales, more common is the HO one, but there are others, obscure sometimes. Moreover there are other scales for plastic soldiers, airplanes, tanks and robots. Could we find a common language among all these types of modelling? I studied the question and I created this table.

ratio	soldiers	trains	others
1:2400	naval
1:1200	naval
1:900	2mm
1:600	tanks & airs
1:300	6mm
1:285	GHQ style
1:220		Z
1:180	10mm
1:160		N
1:150	12mm	N
1:148		N
1:144			mechas
1:120	15mm old	TT
1:102		TT
1:100	15mm new		MG mechas, airs
1:87		HO
1:80		HO
1:76		OO
1:72	20mm		plastic models
1:64		S	cars
1:63	25mm
1:60			PG mechas
1:56	28mm
1:50			buses
1:49	32mm
1:48		O	airs
1:45		O
1:43.5		O	cars
1:35			tanks
1:32	54mm	G	plastic soldiers
1:6			action figures

Some explanations are necessary. Airs are airplanes, and PG (perfect grade) and MG (master grade) are from Bandai’s Gundam animes. There are other train scales but they are rarer than these. There are other scale for soldiers and modelling, but I put here the most.

I divided the modelling world into three categories: soldiers, trains and others.

The first one is that you know better. The smaller “soldiers” are vessels for naval fighting (well, they aren’t soldiers, they contains soldiers, but we assume as soldiers all what is wargame), because you haven’t a swimming-pool for this, and the bigger ones are the 1:6, too big to only think about a game with lots of them (but madness is common among us).

There is a big difference between a metal 20mm and a slighter plastic 20mm. It is a factor of pressing, because metal is rougher to press than plastic, so lead soldiers are sculpted with an alteration of human proportions. Plastic soldiers instead appears too much log limbed at our eyes are used to seeing bulker ones. Exists a method to calculate the dimensions of soldiers, the Barrett one, based on build. You have the highness calculated foot to eyes (the base is out of this measurement) and there is a letter added (L=Light; M=Medium; H=Heavy). So a 28mm can be a 28M for Barrett scale, but there are 28L and 28H too. More a miniature is bulk, more it seems bigger, so there is a big difference between 28L and 28H, and 28H is not compatible with a 29L.
And year after year miniatures are higher because more mm means better details. So if we are speaking about 10mm, often we have got a 11mm or more. Today what we call 15mm is more 17mm than 15mm, or at least 16mm or also 18mm! If you think about the Barrett factor you will have other variations on what is a 15mm. The only method to understand if you can enlist different soldiers together is to put them side by side and look if there are big differences in size. And remember: what you see of enormous at strict distance is a little thing after the painting and on game tables.

Train modelling is a well established hobby but nowadays it involves mainly adults with a lot of money to spend. You can find a lot of buildings and other useful stuff in UK, German or Japanese style. There is also stuff in Italian style, but here you can easily build a Tirol scene than an Italian one. And usually we don’t like very much a place where men wear shorts even with snow! The scales you find in shops are restricted to HO with some N. The others are difficult to find, you have to search online shops or E-Bay. But the weirdest thing is that scales aren’t so fixed, like soldiers situation! You have got different scales for different countries. So N scale is generally 1:160 but in UK it is 1:148! And there are differences among tracks: a same scale have got different gauges.
A very useful thing is the possibility of buy pdf buildings to print on cardboard. If you find them in a different scale than what you want, you must print with a different percentage scale. For example, Z scale must to be printed at 122% if you want to adapt it to 10mm. So this is the table to adapt train modelling scaled sheets to print to lead soldiers.

You can calculate your proportions. Remember the regional differences between the same scale. This is the formula:
(starting scale x 100)/desired scale=multiplier%

Another question is the entire world of modelling. You can find everything but with a lot of scales. And sometimes what is declared isn’t what you get. This is common for models sold through newspaper shops but also for more serious models. Attention is focused on the shape and not on dimensions, it seems more important to have a range of models in the same boxes and with the same size than real scaled sizes. However all the scales reported are fictional, they are models, representation of the reality, not the real things! And this is true for trains, airplanes, cars, soldiers,…

In this moment of the year we count the passed years and think to future years. This is also the moment to set our projects for the new year. Here I only speak on things related to this hobby even if there are other (and sometimes more important) things in my mind…

Well, let’s start on what this 2011 will bring (maybe) on my wargame table:

– Ferrum et Gloria:
to complete the rules with all typology of fighters; full testing of the rules; to put ’em on paper; painting of a lot of fighters; building of a huge arena.

-Flyton:
building of the city and playing with it (with Flyin’ Lead I suppose); it is the space for VBCW, civil war among Daleks, Superheroes, Chtulhu rising, violent penguins, and so on…

-Anticamente:
to win more games I can; to built two armies, Republican Roman & Punic scum with their friends.

-DBA:
to participate to some tournaments, but only in my region.

-SDS:
to compose two squads with a high killing factor; painting of all the pieces.

-Ganeshas:
to test with Sergio and Andrea the new rules about Napoleonics, Space Battles and Giant Monsters.

-Miniatures:
I have a backlog to fill up, a lot of paint to spread on my lead friends, I don’t want to have so many unfinished pieces, even if more reinforcement will arrive during the year.

And there are projects to start, but maybe this is not their year:

-Zen Garden:
a 6mm Japanese skirmish inside a zen garden!

-WWII tanks:
a battleground in 15mm with German and Soviet tanks around.

-Big battle with ancients:
I have some hundreds of Late Roman 28mm, almost all painted, they want to fight!

-Hoplites:
a game with 28mm in hoplite formation, without boring yourself, it can be possible?

-Street demonstration:
cops against angry people, with my rules.

Too much for only a year? Well, Today is only the first day of 2011, why think about it? Happy new year!

I want to close this year with the image of the best mayor of Rome: Gianni Alemanno. You can see here his concept about recycling. He took off bins to streets so now people have to throw away their litter (inside paper bags!) only in (secret?) selected open areas on the street where a dustman collects them, when he is present obviously. This service is activated only in determined hours in the morning, during the day is impossible to throw away your litter. So lazy people throw away their litter everywhere, even in the bins for plastic or glass (the ones that remained at their place). But there is also people unable to reach dustmen, even because people work in the morning. And if you buy a slice of pizza there isn’t a place where to put the envelope.
The recycling fact is only an excuse for some matter of money. I think all this thing costs more than before, and there is no more recycling. The upper picture explain all the situation on the new service to a cleaner Rome. It was took under my house in a normal day.

I could say more on this great mayor and his great management, his scandals and his inefficiencies, but I think you can just see this photo where our mayor is doing one of his habitual activities. With a free translation, the surname Alemanno can be interpreted something like “Oi! I eat!”.

In this night there is the tradition to throw away the old things that you don’t want in the following year. I’m thinking about someone…

Luca is back in Rome from London to visit his parents, with wife and children. And so a new reunion of old chaps was setted! Here we are at the beginning of the evening, at work with forks and mouths. We ate (for each one): 1 crocchetta (boiled ground potato, then fried, with mozzarella inside), 1 fiore di zucchina (fried zucchini’s flower with anchovy and mozzarella), 1 oliva ascolana (fried minced olive with ground meat), 1 supplì (ball of fried rice with tomato and mozzarella), 2 arancini (big ball of fried rice with meat and other things and spices), 1 pizza (big like a roofing tile). I had some traditional sweets at home, but we only drink water and digestives.

After the dinner we played with Song of Drums and Shakos, 2 (I and Luca) vs. 2 (Paolo and Narciso), with a scenario managed by Diego. Turns was driven by playing cards. Glorious French have to sack some sheep (we simulated them with white dices!) to bastard goddams. You can guess which side I was. Well, more than skilful shepherds we were only dedicated to shoot enemies. At the end there were so many cadavers and sheep were almost useless because there were not more alive stomachs to feed.

Final photo! Outside the temperature is low so my chaps seem inflated to cover from cold. Or fried and pizza inflated we all!

Today we played with Trivial Pursuit and Visual Game, classic games to play during parties with unprofessional players, but some days ago, during Christmas shopping time, we found time for an afternoon with boardgames. This time was “World without end” turn. The explanation of the rules by my friends was more complex than the game, so I found some elements only playing it and I had a bad performance. It is the following of the “Pillars of the Earth”, and the graphic remind it. Here you are in a successive moment respect the construction of the cathedral, now you are building the city. The mechanics are different but there is a touch of the first title. There is interaction with the other players, but it is not so great. What can I say? Well, it is a fun game, easy to play even if you cannot plan a lot in advance so there isn’t a strategy to apply but all is a bit casual, or at least I tried this. Interesting game, but probably not the best game around. I want to play it another time with more conscience.

Here Paolo and Franci in Christmas version with my gifts.