Archive for January, 2011

Axis and no Allies

Finally I have got the chief of Axis. For Allies you have to wait. I’m building an army for VBCW but nothing is ready. I hope in the following months we will have more light to make finishing touches on a lot of miniatures. I have got almost 50 pieces (or are they more) that wait this process and their place on the fields of battle. I look at the pile of lead to paint and I think there is too much work to do. But I need some reinforcements. I’m waiting to know what to do for Salute. In the meantime I wrote a long wish list…

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Torre Astura 67 years after

Exactly 67 years ago Torre Astura was part of the seaside where Allies landed. This was the landing known as landing of Anzio and Nettunia (now Nettuno). Italian forces fought among their German comrades to defend their land from invaders. I wear the Battaglione Azzurro uniform, Italian paratroopers. Main Italian forces were Barbarigo and Nembo.

Here, even with my chap Renato on a captured jeep, among the dunes of this historical beach. On the background you can see Torre Astura, a fortress built on an ancient Roman villa.

A lot of people dressed like Americans are present.

This is an organized group. It is quite easy to interpret Americans, you can find dresses and stuff. Our Italian uniforms are made by mother and wife and not bought in a shop.

Sophisticated accessories and a great cure in particulars. Here you can see radio equipment and a firethrower.

Today is a raining and freezing day. It is January, you know. Snow is on mountains at the end of the valley. We use trucks to go around. Without covers. A real war experience.

There are a lot of vehicles, jeeps and kübelwagens at most, and a delicious little Fiat car.

We move ourself in a convoy form among the street near the seaside. Astonished people cheers us. Even bitches along the way cheers us.

Other people at the HQ. There are some Germans, especially paratroopers, with a smart medic officer. Only an English present, but with a great mimetic uniform.

There are other events today and tomorrow but I’m busy with work. The landing go on. Only 60 km to Rome, but served 5 months to cover them. Our Axis troops were just not so weak…

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Dadi & Piombo 43

dadi e piombo 43

The new issue is out. This is the Italian magazine about wargame with miniatures. It is bilingual, so you can read it even if you don’t know Italian but only English.

In this issue you can find an interesting article about Crusader and Foundry gladiators and how they are historically adequate or not, with notes about the real typologies of gladiators.

This issue is one of the best in the last times. You can find more here.

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Borders

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.

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A viaduct in Bologna

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 😉

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All for viaduct!

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!

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Measurements

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.

1:6 bomb, 28mm doctor, 15mm romulus

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.

train to 15mm to 28mm
N 160% 286%
TT 120% 214%
HO 87% 155%
OO 76% 136%
O 45% 80%

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,…

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Happy new year!

new year

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!

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