Commissions for 2024

 Hi

 

I have availability for new commission work starting January.

This includes making custom scenery, laser cut tiles, buildings, etc such as the Portable Wargames tiles I have made, hex scenery, etc

Please enquire about prices for custom builds.

I am also have some space for painting commissions.

You can see my painting on this blog, but ask for more photos if you need them.

Prices:

28mm (shaded)

Infantry £5
Cavalry £9

40mm/ 54mm Toy Soldier with some facial shading.

Infantry £7
Cavalry £12

All prices include VAT and basing.

Drop me an email to mike@blackhat.co.uk  if you are interested.

thanks

Mike

Plans for 2024

 I have had the really bad cold/flu thing that is going round so haven't done much for the last two weeks but I finally had the energy today to tidy and sort out the Painting Bureau.

I've thrown away all the dried up paints, sorted out all the excess figures that don't need to be there, thrown away a few test figures I am never going to use.

 

 

Also sorted through all the flags, banners and decals and put them in the middle thin drawer so I can actually find them!

 

Sorted out the bottom cupboard which holds the part painted but not finished projects.

 

 

I  have a few plans for 2024:

1) Concentrate on the 18th century for painting.

So, finish the 36 40mm AWI continentals that are on the painting table and then I should be able to play  a game.  Aim at adding a 12 figure unit each month to build up the forces.

Paint a 24 figure 25mm Minifigs Marlburian unit each month - I have 2 french on painting sticks, 1 british and 1 austrian in stock.

Finish the design for the Ravelin that is nearly done, get it laser cut and built, then work on the walls and the bastions.

2) Finish the scenery for Frostgrave (it really just needs "snowing up" and finally get it on the table and play a game.

3) Put all other partial projects away for now so I don't get distracted (20mm Sudan, 54mm Punic Wars, etc).

4) Paint some of the hundreds of Reaper Bones figures in between historical units so I can play some dungeon exploring games.

That is pretty much it.  I have a bad tendency to butterfly and not actually finish anything so I am hoping that I can get Frostgrave AWI and the Marlburians on the table this year.

I also want to play some more 20mm ACW and get the 25mm FPW collection on the table more often.

I have a large collection of early war 20mm WW2 that I bought very cheaply that I need to sort out and keep what I need and sell the rest (noone needs a division of German paratroopers!)

Apart from Marlburians I can't see me buying much this year  - I am more likely to sell stuff off excess figures from the 54mm Napoleonics and 20mm WW2.

With Hot Lead and Cold Steel - 2nd ACW Game

 

 

 Anthony and I played our second game with these new Osprey rules last week.  In our first game we got a lot of rules wrong ad misunderstood how the unit sizes worked but felt they were worth another try.

The second game went much better and we only got a few small things incorrect (Tiny units failing a morale test are removed, morale tests for units nearby if a unit runs, etc).

The rules seem to me to combine the best bits of Pickett's Charge and Black Powder while allowing you to play much larger games than Pickett's charge with several brigades a side.

They use a similar order system to Black Powder, but if you fail to roll enough for 3 moves, but pass the 2 move roll you can still move 2 moves with a brigade.  This makes the game move along as you don't fail to do anything that often.

Firepower is VERY bloody once you get close and units remove a base for every 6 hits which drops them down a size, so Large->Average->Small->Tiny with a similar drop in their abilities.

This means that the game moves quickly and you get a result with Brigades breaking at 50% losses.

Units can be rallied and come back to the fight but they don't regain bases (something that the Neil Thomas ACW rules have which means the game never ends!).

I like the use of ADCs to let you bid for the initiative roll and to help with brigade orders and I like the fact that units can return fire when fired on during the opponent's turn.  This stops the problem with initiative based games where one side can potentially fire twice before the other side returns fire.

Like most of the Osprey Blue Books they need several read throughs to make sure you have understood all the rules and found the exceptions, etc in the places they are mentioned.

I have typed up a QRS which steps through the stages of a turn in order which should stop us forgetting things next time.

So far they seem a very promising set.

ACW Buildings

 

Managed to finally finish 5 Hovels 15mm ACW buildings for my 20mm ACW collection.

I prefer the smaller reduced footprint of going down a scale for buildings in mass battles.

They are based to fit in with my Hex terrain.

40mm AWI Militia

 A couple of quick photos of 2 units of 40mm AWI Militia for Rebels and Patriots.

I need to paint 36 more Continentals for the Americans and then I can play a game.

WSS Austrians

 First Austrian WSS unit for the Dendermonde project - 25mm Minifgs. Just need flag adding and bases tidying. (Figures from a very generous Alan Gruber).

Warfare 2023

 I spent two days over the weekend at Warfare running the Guildford Club Demonstration game  "Guildford 1940" - a sealion game in 20mm using Rapid Fire Reloaded rules and (mostly) my 20mm early war collection (including a lot of Airfix figures).

The game board was 2' by 12' and represented a slice of surrey countryside very close to where the club meets and was brilliantly put together by Martin Burford. It is based on an attack in on the GHQ line in a book about the sealion invasion that sees the germans coming up through Guildford.

We had a force of germans entering from the south, a recce group coming through middle and paratroopers landing at the far end (opposed by home guard).

We won the Most Innovative Demo Game award and talked to a LOT of people - my voice is quite croaky today.

Here are the very few pics of the game I managed to take first thing on Saturday.

Warfare seemed well attended and they had more through the door on the Saturday then last year.  I spoke to some traders and they seemed happy with takings. There were a few of the normal trders missing such as Colonel Bills (Stu is no longer doing 2 day shows). Plastic Soldier Company, Peter Pig, etc but I think this is a reflection of traders getting older and attending fewer show, and people's mail order picking up and staying strong during and after lockdowns.

There were plenty of newer traders who I hadn't seen before - mainly scenery and 3d printing companies - there does seem a lack of new figure companies breaking into the market.

The only comment I would make is that the demo games could have been better spaced out with larger gaps between them for people to move and stop and chat.  It all felt a little cramped at times.

But, all in all, an enjoyable weekend. 

We have been asked by a couple of other shows if we would take the game to their shows next year and we are discussing that at the moment.