Skirmish Game Day-August 31, 2013! 

Skirmish Game Day is a DFW area games tradition.  We're having this year's Game Day at Area 51 Games and Collectables in Grapevine, Texas.  Most genres will be represented.  Several Napoleonic games and a SAGA tournament will be held.  

I'm putting on the "Battle of Yasgur's Farm". It's a direct rip-off of the campaign against Cornwallis leading to the Battle of Yorktown.  Cornwallis has split his forces to pursue the motley crew of Rebels.  The rebels have stretched out the British along the route of march.  The rebels turn and attempt to defeat the British in detail.  This battle occurs along the clearing known as Yasgur's Farm. The rebels hold the sizable farm known as Woodstock or Yasgur's Farm.  The British must clear the rebels from the farm, obtain victuals and move to crush the main rebel force approximately 2 days march away.  

I'm using All the King's Men rules and playing the game on a 12x6 table. The rules are fun, easy to learn and subtle to master.  If you live in the area and/or just want to make a day trip to the DFW area, please take a look at our main site.  We're looking forward to seeing YOU!

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Painting Day 3-A.T.K.M. French Cuirassier-54mm

I took a couple of days off. Work gets in the way of painting sometimes. Not whining, just keeping long hours during the first quarter of school.  I Minwax'd the Cuirassier over the weekend and finished it out tonight. It took about 1.5 hours even stopping for some dinner.  These figures do paint up nicely.  I'm still not sure about the tall green grass thing under the horse but will finish it out and see how it looks.  I don't think having it is a deal breaker however.  I'm looking foward to seeing a 12 figure regiment, en haye, on the game board.  

You'll notice I'm beginning the basing process.  It's a really difficult process...:) Paint the base Vallejo Beasty Brown (you choose whatever color-I just had 12 bottles of it laying around after my ECW project.) let it dry 30 minutes. Put a thick coat of Elmer's Glue. I use whatever is around. I'm a teacher so I'll scrounge up a bottle of School Glue on the cheap.  I put a combination of Medium and Light weight Woodland Scenics brown ballast. I buy the big plastic bottle. My bottles have lasted three years.  Ha! I put the ballast in a cleaned up plastic lunchmeat container. Do try this at home!  Finish the glue thang by spreading it around and dip the figure into the container. Badda-Boom-Baada Bing...done! I then glue down some Medium weight railroad rock stuff from Woodland Scenics. Paint it Dark Grey when it's dry.  I use Basalt Grey by Vallejo.  Use whatever you like.  I dry brush the rocks with Howard Hues Concrete then lightly touch the rocks with a medium viscosity Acrylic white.  I use cheap tube White for this part.  Get some static grass from your favorite Local Game Store. I get mine from the Model Railroad shop because I can get more stuff and save a little in the purchase. As per the ballast, I've had this stuff for about three years too.  Brush on some diluted Elmers in a classic WW2 British camo pattern and sprinkle the static grass on the base. Thump the base a couple of times.  The grass will stand up on its own.  This is the most time consuming part of the basing.  I then repaint the edges of the miniature with more Beasty Brown to finish it out. All my figures have magnetized surfaces. I sign each figure base and date it.  Sounds weird...well...pretty weird...it's cool however to look under some figures you've not played in a while and find you painted 10 years ago.  Musing of an old man right?  Anyway, here's the miniature painted and ready to base up. 

You NEED some of the figures if you collect 54mm Napoleonics. Easy to paint, easy to finish out

Day 2-ATKM 54mm Cuirassier 

I've finished the basic block colors on the miniature. I used Vallejo paints for most of the figure.  I also used Howard Hues Concrete for the base color of the shabraque.  

The base of the plastic horse looks a bit weird with the tall grass and all. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep the foliage or cut it down a bit. We'll see how it looks once the miniature is based.

I do like the way the plastic horse turned out. It didn't turn out too poorly.

 Here's a shot from the other side. I'm liking these figures.

 I use this old copy of Peter Blum's Model Soldier Manual for painting horses, tartans and constantly re-learning how to paint eyes without giving the figure the "zombie stare".  Found this copy at Half Price Books. I don't know if it's still available. My copy was printed in 1971.

This is what I use instead of washing (never works right-always muddies up the figure), Army Painter (this can was $4.00 USD at Ace Hardware-how much did you pay for Army Painter), is the right shade (not too dark-not too light-just right) and will brush on with a flat brush consistently.  It cleans up and is thinned with Odorless Mineral Spirits. Keeps the spouse happy with "no stank".  Light brush on instead of the lazy-assed "dip method". Takes about 8-12 hours to dry. I don't take the figures into the Tejas heat to speed dry them. I've found that doing that "crackles" the finish.  

More pictures as the project continues....you NEED some of these figures! They definitely are cool.