The Great War (World War One), the Russian Civil War and other interwar theatres, the English Civil War, Thirty Years War, and similar pike-and-shotte era entertainments; possible diversions into swashbuckling; similar historical and quasi-historical goings-on.
Photos from Trumpeter Salute 2023
Brian and I (plus friends) attended Trumpeter Salute 2023 last weekend. No, not the UK one, the smaller one in Vancouver, Canada. We all had a great…
Trumpeter Salute 2023 Done and Dusted
My first gaming weekend since 2019 has come and gone and it was good. And as is often the case, I took far too few photos, including exactly none…
Spotting Record Cards for Naval Gaming
In all of the coastal naval rules sets that we've played, spotting and situational awareness are among the most important factors. Doesn't matter how…
Decals for 1/1200 Miniatures
Way back at the very end of 2020 I contacted Misc Minis about decals suitable for 1/1200 ship and aircraft miniatures. After a couple of rounds of…
The Workbench This Week, 28 March 2023
The workbench this week... is up and running in our new condo! We had an offer accepted at the beginning of February, got the keys ten days ago in…
Storing the Fleets
When talking about masts on tiny ships recently I mentioned that my current storage solution for my fleets was, frankly, bad. This last weekend I sat…
Masts & Booms, Part Two
After doing the detailing of the JMS 3d printed ships, I pulled out the rest of my 1/1200 WW2 ships, all pewter from Figurehead, and added masts to…
Masts & Booms
More detailing on 1/1200 scale ships with plastic broom bristle. I've added cargo handling booms to the masts and kingposts of two of the Antics 3d…
Masts with Broom Bristle
A bit of experimenting today with plastic broom bristle for masts on 1/1200 WW2 ships. I'm happy to say it works well, although as expected at this…
The Workbench This Week, 27 Dec 2022
I've got the week between Christmas and New Years off entirely this year, so there's been a bit of painting going on. Mostly I've been working on the…
3d Printed 1/1200 Ships from Antics
Antics, a UK model/toy shop, carry a small range of resin 3d printed 1/1200 WW2 ships under the John's Model Shipyard name. There are a lot of…
Naval Scenery Articles To Date
Here's all of my posts on 1/1200 coastal naval scenery so far... I'll try to remember to add to this post as I create future articles! Sandbars,…
Small Scale Islands
To round out the current run of small scale scenery for coastal naval games I decided on a trio of islands, one of them with a lighthouse. As with…
Rocks vs Boats
After doing a pair of new sandbanks, I wanted to do something slightly different but still on the theme of "stuff to crash boats and ships into" and…
Sandbars for Naval Gaming
As mentioned in the last post, I recently made a pair of new sandbars to give our boats and ships more stuff to run into during our games. I've done…
Remembrance Day Weekend, November 2022
Went to our local municipal Remembrance Day ceremony in person this year, after two years of live streamed ceremonies watched from my computer, which…
Back To The Boats
Getting back into the 1/1200 WW2 boats a bit, had a refresher game of Germans attacking a British coastal convoy last week and I'm running a…
Bloody Miniatures Company of Wolves
Finally finished the sixteen English Civil War 28mm figures from Bloody Miniatures' Release 1, The Company of Wolves. I did mine up a bit plainer…
An entry for Lead Adventure’s Build Something Competition 2022 – a farm!
Each year Lead Adventure forum runs a Build Something Competition, each with a theme. Brian and I have participated 5 times at various points in the…
Fire, Explosion, and Wreckage Markers for Tiny Boats
Sometime earlier in the pandemic I ordered a batch of 1/1200 3d printed stuff from Shapeways, who use some sort of resin printing to get incredible…
Links of Interest, 11 August 2021
Quiet around here as I'm not doing a lot of gaming, painting, or terrain building this summer. Too busy with other things! I did have a couple of…
BCS 2021 & A Blog Update
Well, "a few weeks" in my last update apparently turned into two months of radio silence here. Oops.Build Something Contest 2021 over on LAF had the…
New Books for the Library
Went on a bit of a book buying spree recently in aid of getting more background material for my WW2 coastal naval gaming; among the classic…
Links of Interest, 10 March 2021
A scattering of links for our first Links of Interest of 2021! More possible sources of small scale scenery are always welcome, and over on…
Cold Waters Ocean Mat Review
For my naval gaming I knew I needed a proper mat eventually; I thought about doing up a sheet of grey felt with spraypaint and such, but then I found…
2020 In Review
Well, that was quite a year, wasn't it? No conventions, no in-person gaming at all for a good part of the year thanks to our local COVID…
Links of Interest, 30 September 2020
Busy month but not much gaming activity of any sort!Over on the awesome Lead Adventure Forum, Silent Invader discussed a really neat…
Links of Interest, 17 August 2020
Nice little sculpting tutorial on doing feathers in greenstuff from JuanHidalgo Miniatures. I really like short, approachable tutorials like this,…
More Small Scale Scenery Inspiration
There aren't a lot of small scale scenery tutorials out there, either as videos or traditional blog post writeups. Viv on RubbishInRubbishOut,…
Fifty (or so) Tiny Buildings
I've finished painting the last buildings of my first Brigade Models Small Scale Scenics order, before I start in on painting the buildings and…
Blinds & Markers for WW2 Naval Gaming
Most naval rules have spotting and target ID rules of some sort or another, often with various stages of "we think something's out there" through…
Tiny Boats and Even Tinier Planes
When I did my first WW2 coastal order to Last Square back in November 2019, well over six months ago now, I added a pack of British…
New WW2 Tiny Boats
Latest batch of World War Two coastal naval vessels in 1/1200 scale is done and based. As with the previous vessels, these are all Figurehead from…
Links of Interest, 1 July 2020
For this Canada Day in a time of pestilence abroad in the land, the usual mix of individual links and items that don't quite warrant an entire…
Links of Interest, 14 June 2020
Wargames Designs is partly a webstore, with some good looking historical wargaming flags in a variety of scales, among other things, but they also…
Star Shell & Moon Markers for Naval Games
Both Narrow Seas and Coastal Patrol (and probably other naval games, I'm guessing) include rules for the moon being full or partial in their sighting…
Tiny Ships: A Game of Coastal Patrol
As mentioned last weekend after our game of Narrow Seas, we also wanted to try out Coastal Patrol, available in the Summer 2011 Special from…
An Actual Game of Tiny Ships!
This afternoon we actually got the tiny ships onto the table and had a game using the Narrow Seas rules. First, of course, I had to use blue-tac…
Tiny Ships Painted!
I finally have painted ships (well, boats, mostly) to go with the coastal terrain I've been showing off! All my 1:1200 naval stuff so far is from…
Links of Interest, 27 January 2020
First links of interest of the new year - and the new decade, come to that! Dana Howl has a fairly new YouTube channel that I discovered via…
Coastline Complete
The first coastline segments are done, barring a tiny amount of touchup here and there. Overview of the coastline and other bits. Click for…
A Headland for Tiny Ships
Cranked out a headland for my coastal terrain, so we can have the coastline end on-table without looking super-weird. It's designed to go on either…
Small Buildings & Tiny Ships, Part Three
A green and miniature land! The first two coastal modules are finished, except that I'm still mucking about with forest canopy solutions, so those…
Small Buildings & Tiny Ships, Part Two
Painting up the Brigade Models tiny English buildings turned out to be ridiculously fun. They've got all sorts of great detail and really reward a…
Small Buildings & Tiny Ships
Progress on my naval project, last seen in November's A Naval Diversion post. My buildings from Brigade Model's Small Scale Scenics range and British…
A Naval Diversion
At BottosCon 2019 earlier in November I got the chance to play Warlord Games' new Cruel Seas coastal naval game, British vs German speedboats in the…
Fenris Games Runestones
I picked up a few things from Fenris Games back in June or July, and the first pieces are finally getting completed and onto the gaming…
A 17th Century Bastion, Part One
Several of the scenarios in Pikeman's Lament ask for a bastion or earthwork to be attacked or defended, but at a maximum area of 9"x9" it isn't going…
A Graveyard (Much Delayed)
File this one under "long neglected projects finally finished", I guess. I've finally based, painted, and finished the last of the Renedra…
Stable Genius
After finishing the three little cottages on Saturday, I decided to do something slightly different on Sunday and made a building that could serve as…
BSC 2018: Correcting some too thin errors
As I am fairly new to 3D printing, I am learning a tonne about what not to do. One of the biggest issues I have discovered is that things that look…
BSC 2018: First print of 1956 PANG
The new printer board for my 3D printer finally showed up, so I got to printing the first print of my 1956 PANG. It was less than a full success. As…
BSC 2018: PANG print layout
I finally got around to laying out the 1956 PANG for the first printing. As you can see from the pictures below, I am trying to remove the need for…
BSC 2018: 1956 PANG first printable draft
Build Something 2018 continues and I have been pretty quiet for the last week. Part of this is because I am waiting on the warrantied printer board,…
Colourful Cavalry, Part Two
Horses in colours other than brown! Armour in colours other than silver! Dogs and cats living together! Chaos and disorder! Well, something…
BSC 2018: 1956 PANG continued
Well, Build Something 2018 is well underway at Lead Adventure. You can follow all the entries, including at least two other 3D printed things, over…
Colourful Cavalry: Armour as well as horses!
I've posted links to horse painting articles and tutorials before, including the exhaustive "horse of a different colour" series over at Trouble at…
Finished English Civil War Figures
Not the greatest photographs going, but so far the only ones I've gotten of all of my recently completed 28mm ECW figures all…
Happy New Year!
Slightly belated Happy New Year to all! After months of doing absolutely zilch on the gaming front I saw the year out in some style, at least,…
Back To Painting, Finally
I'm fairly sure the last time I touched a paintbrush was back in July. Maybe August. As posts here will show, all wargaming activity of any sort…
The Assault Group ECW Artillery
The Assault Group (TAG) has a huge range of Thirty Year's War/English Civil War/general Renaissance figures that I'd heard good things about,…
Pike In Blue
First unit of foot for my English Civil War project is done! 28mm pike from Warlord on 25mm wide bases. Click for larger. Ten pikemen, an…
Warbases Skirmish Movement Trays
I picked up a batch of simple lasercut MDF trays sized for 25mm bases on one of my recent Warbases order. Pikeman's Lament uses either six or twelve…
Links of Interest, 22 June 2017
A handful of links I thought were worth sharing this week. Historical Enterprises, Inc are a historical reenactors garb/costuming company with all…
A Small Stone Circle
Not every stone circle is a gigantic trilithon monument like Stonehenge. Some of them might be barely recognizable as stone circles, in fact, until…
The Workbench This Week, 12 June 2017
Much chaos in my non-gaming life, so time and brainpower to actually paint is kind of hard to come by, but this weekend I sat down and organized my…
Review: Warbases MDF Vehicles
Warbases started doing vehicles in lasercut MDF and cardboard (greyboard) a few years ago and I was intrigued right away; a lot of 28mm vehicles are…
Stone Outbuilding Finished
Glued down the towel thatching, slapped a coat of paint over the small stone building, added the door, and declared it done! The towel got cut…
Links of Interest, 16 May 2017
A semi-random collection of links that have caught my eye recently! Swamp grass from cheap paintbrushes via Rob Hawkin's awesome blog. Hmm, I just…
Stone Outbuilding/Hovel
With the farmhouse and dovecote progressing well, I wanted to move on to a few smaller buildings to the mix. This little stone outbuilding is the…
Half-Timber Farmhouse, Part One
After getting the dovecote constructed (although not yet painted) I decided the next building would be a bit more substantial, and that a farmhouse…
Half-Timber Dovecote, Part Two
When we last saw the dovecote, the halftimber detailing on the walls was done, the roof was just started, and it lacked paint. Here's the current…
Half-Timber Dovecote, Dampfpanzerwagon Style: Part One
As I mentioned in my last post about the things I brought home from Trumpeter Salute, one of them was a copy of Issue #87 of Wargames, Soldiers, and…
Links of Interest, 26 April 2015
A few links to get us through the weekend! I have a moderate font-collecting addiction. Dafont is my go-to source of high quality free fonts, but…
Martin’s Photos From Trumpeter Salute
My own photos from the Trumpeter Salute show over in Vancouver at the end of March are still unsorted and unedited, but Martin has gotten his photos…
Links of Interest, 25 March 2015
Yet another post of short links, news, random bits, and oddments that wouldn't warrant a full post. Laser-cut MDF for early motor vehicles? They…
Eureka’s Tachanka, Part Two
The Eureka tachanka itself (the wagon, that is) comes together fairly easily with a bit of patience and some test fitting. The main body is a single…
To Delay Is Dangerous
Via the US Library of Congress, this fantastic simple British recruiting poster from 1915. ...To Delay Is Dangerous... Really fantastic…
The Assault on St. Vodkanovich Monastery
Last Sunday (15 March) got us another bash at using Chain of Command/Mud & Blood (I've taken to calling it "Chain of Mud") for Russian Civil War…
More RCW Patrol Markers In Progress
I've been working on a couple of additions to my earlier collection of markers for Chain of Command-powered Russian Civil War. As I was finishing…
RCW Patrol Markers for Chain of Command
In the run-up to this weekend's GottaCon convention, I've finally gotten around to finishing the patrol markers I need to properly run Chain of…
My Chain of Command Tactical Markers
Recently we've tried out TooFatLardie's Chain of Command/Through the Mud & the Blood hybrid rules with my Russian Civil War figures, and found…
Russian Civil War with Chain of Command
We had a quick and messy intro to the TooFatLardies' Chain of Command/Through the Mud and the Blood WW1 hybrid today with my Russian Civil War…
All Quiet On The Warbard Front?
Quiet around here; I was away for a week earlier in December visiting family out of town, caught a rather unpleasant cold right at the end of that…
The Great War Week by Week
I just found out about this very interesting project - The Great War on YouTube. Their plan is to do at least one episode a week all the way through…
Back! (Again…)
Just back from a month-long field assignment, as mentioned in my previous post. I have more photos of the sculpting projects to post, and some new…
A Roman Dice Tower
Rummaging around on the internet for information and pictures of dice towers, I tripped over this awesome piece of work, the Vettweiss-Froitzheim…
The Atlantic on WW1
The Atlantic magazine is running a ten-part World War One in Photos series with some very interesting images I've not seen before. They're doing a…
The Free City Sourcebook
Not a roleplaying book, although it sounds like it, and an RPG set in Danzig could be pretty cool, actually, now that I think about it, but the Free…
Retreat From Moscow
Back in late January, two of the gamers of our group put together a 28mm Napoleonic "Retreat from Moscow" game that was a blast - everyone had a…
Third Anglo-Afghan War Resources
The Third Anglo-Afghan War of 1919 is a short (May-August 1919) and often forgotten war, and an interesting product of both the aftermath of the…
Post-Great War War Crimes Trials
The Guardian's Pictures From The Past feature for Jan. 23 (yesterday) featured a photo of the former German Kaiser with his family in his well-known…
Canada’s 1919 Siberian Expedition
Here's a nice Christmas present for those of us interested in the Russian Civil War, the Great War and related events: siberianexpedition.ca is a…
Sarissa CityBlock Buildings, Finished
Finally have the Sarissa CityBlock 28mm lasercut MDF buildings to a table-ready state, including another hand-painted advertising sign on the side of…
Sarissa CityBlock Buildings, Part The Third
Progress continues on my seven Sarissa Precision buildings, albeit at a slower pace than I'd intended! Basecoat and drybrushing is done on all…
Sarissa CityBlock Buildings, Part The Second
Having assembled my new Sarrisa Precision lasercut buildings, it was time to consider adding some extra details to really make these buildings "pop"…
Sarissa CityBlock Buildings, Part The First
In my last post (two+ weeks ago!) I mentioned I'd bought a bundle of Sarissa Precision's lasercut 28mm CityBlock buildings to bring our pulp gaming…
Lead Painters League 7, Round Eight
Back to the Russian Civil War again this LPL round with some Copplestone 28mm Bolsheviks. I really like the whole Copplestone Back of Beyond range,…
Lead Painters League 7, Round Five
Round Five of LPL7 was one of three Theme Rounds; this time the theme was "Historical Civil Wars". This fits perfectly into my ongoing Russian Civil…
Lead Painters League 7, Round One
Round One of Lead Adventure Forum's Lead Painters League 7 (LPL7) painting contest has wrapped up. The (non-mandatory) bonus theme for this opening…
Martin’s Trumpeter Salute 2013 Photos
Martin, an long-time friend who now lives in Vancouver, has been slowly posting his photos from the recent Trumpeter Salute gaming convention. As I…
All Of Them
Doing final organization for my Trumpeter Salute Russian Civil War game this evening, I did something I've never actually done in the two years of…
The Workbench This Week, 3 April 2013
Even more chaotic than usual as I prep for Trumpeter Salute 2013 this coming weekend! Protected car festooned with Bolshie flags, and other random…
When the Chinese met the train, a RCW game
In a cavalcade of firsts this Sunday, my (mostly) freshly-painted Chinese met their match in our new armed train, all being played on our new gaming…
Chinese Warlord Cards & Blinds
Corey recently started painting up a Chinese Warlord force from Copplestone 28mm figures to extend our Russian Civil War gaming in a more Back of…
The Workbench This Week, 15 March 2013
Quiet by our usual standards here on the Warbard this week of both Pi Day and the Ides of March, but I've been busy with a couple of small projects…
Wargamers With Frickin’ Lasers, Part II
Exactly seven days after I ordered some Orthodox crosses and a few other laser-cut bits from Archeotech, a small padded envelope arrived from the UK.…
Wargamers With Frickin’ Lasers
Over on Lead Adventure, in a thread about some nifty laser-cut bits someone had commissioned, I randomly commented that I wanted a dozen or so…
4Ground Cart Review
As part of an order that arrived this week from Brigade Games I picked up one of 4Ground's neat looking laser-cut carts. This one is "28-CAW-303…
Full Production Mode
A quick look at my painting bench as a I get ready for Saturday's Russian Civil War game at GottaCon. On the right, 15 Bolsheviks, a mix of regulars…
Look, Up In The Sky…
...it's a bird, it's a plane... well, actually, it's a flying stand to get my existing SPAD and Nieuport fighters onto the table properly! Flying…
1920s Atlas Scans
The website Hipkiss' Scans of Old Maps has the 1920 London Geographical Institute's The People's Atlas scanned as fairly high quality images. It…
Ainsty Crates
Painted up the first bits from my December Ainsty order, the rifle crates and tea crates. The rifle crates are really nice pieces, with well…
Renedra Tents Painted
As a diversion from painting Russians, I've painted up the first part of my recent Renedra plastics order from J&M Miniatures. I ordered two…
Updated M&B Russian Civil War Cards!
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I've been rebuilding the entire deck of cards needed for Through the Mud & the Blood-powered Russian Civil War…
Book Review: Trench by Stephen Bull
Trench: A History of Trench Warfare on the Western Front by Stephen Bull. This is a joint publication by Osprey Publishing and the Imperial War…
Renedra Generics Scenery Bits
A few weeks ago, I took advantage of J & M Miniatures' offer of free shipping for all of December to order a few bits and pieces of Renedra's…
Prepping for GottaCon 2013
In just under three weeks our local big convention kicks off - GottaCon 2013 is February 1st, 2nd & 3rd at the Pearkes Recreation Centre. I'll be…
How I Paint Russians
It seems "what colours do you use for WW1 Russian uniforms?" is one of those things that comes up again and again. I've been painting an awful lot of…
Draft Versions of New M&B Cards
As I mentioned recently, I've been rebuilding my Russian Civil War cards for Through the Mud & the Blood over the last few weeks. I've finally…
WW1 Posters On BibliOdyssey
The often-fascinating website BibliOdyssey has just posted a glorious selection of World War One posters from the US, UK, France, Greece and…
Eastern Front Details for the Tabletop
Rummaging through other people's blogs (as one does) I tripped over this nice two-part series on Eastern Front gates: Part One, Part Two from August…
Rebuilding my RCW M&B Cards
As we've played Through the Mud & the Blood-powered Russian Civil War skirmishes over the past year or two (has it really been that long?) we've…
All Over By Christmas
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Squamous Cthulhumas, or whatever other mid-winter holiday you celebrate! Here's a bit of family Christmas history…
The Invisibility of Good Rules
No, not rules for Frodo sneaking up on Smaug with that useful ring of his (although possibly related), but the trick of having good rules that you…
Back in the Proto-USSR
Ran my first miniatures game in ages yesterday (Sunday), with a friend running the defending Whites and a co-worker/friend who'd never played Through…
Further Great War Resources
Over a year ago, in July 2011, I wrote a long article called Great War Resources with links to the Internet Archive and other places you could find…
Dogs of War
No, not the Warhammer-universe mercenaries, but the real thing, in real-world wars. The Library of Congress' excellent Flickr account, where they…
What I’ve Been Up To Lately
Bit of a slow summer here on the Warbard, and in gaming in general for me. I haven't touched a paintbrush since June (or possibly May...) and while…
Two New Books: Britmis & The Great War on the Western Front
My most recent order from Naval & Military Press showed up this week; just over three weeks enroute isn't bad for surface shipping from the UK to…
Book Review: The White Armies of Russia
The White Armies of Russia: A Chronicle of Counter-Revolution and Allied Intervention by George Stewart is another modern reprint from Naval &…
Airships for Lenin!
A bit later than the Russian Revolution/Russian Civil War-era Russian history that I usually post about, but it overlaps so beautifully in our pulp…
And now for something completely different: two Cadillac ’59s
Brian and I avoid most post-WW2 gaming as a general principle (we just don't find it all that exciting) but the one part that holds any interest for…
World War One Aviation Resources
Via (of all the random places) a MetaFilter discussion of WW1 flight sims, four zip files full of PDFs of public domain World War One flying books,…
For Canada Day: UK National Archives pictures of Canada
In commemoration of Canada Day, our former colonial masters have found some pictures of that place formerly known as their colony of Canada and very…
Links of Interest, 29th June 2012
I haven't been doing much wargaming stuff the last couple of weeks, for a variety of bad reasons, so things have definitely been quieter here on the…
Pictures from our last RCW game
Brian already gave a nice little AAR of our last game, but I thought I would make it a little interesting. Sadly my primary machine has been on the…
Cavalry, Armoured Cars and Other Amusements
The Sunday gaming club was pretty much at capacity today! We meet up at the University of Victoria and have a classroom reserved every Sunday, and…
Book Review: Gone To Russia To Fight
The international intervention into the Russian Civil War — basically, the Western Entente (Allies) attempting to first keep Russia in the fight…
Book Review: Notes for Infantry Officers on Trench Warfare
"The importance assumed by trench warfare... have rendered necessary special instructions in the details of trench construction and trench fighting."…
Props: Canadian National Telegram from 1931(ish)
Enjoying the now-disappeared sunshine that we had here a week or so ago, I went for a bike ride and came across a fairly common sight in any city:…
Interwar Iraq (and elsewhere)
I've previously posted images from the San Diego Air & Space Museum Archive's Flickr account, but they've just uploaded nearly one thousand images…
Horse Painting
As I predicted when I linked to it, the very nice Games Workshop tutorial on painting horses has vanished from their website, which is a shame.…
Russian Civil War Sailors (and post #200!)
I speed-painted these guys in about two evenings back in March so they could add a bit of colour to the Russian Civil War game I ran at Trumpeter…
Armstrong-Whitworth Armoured Car, Finished
Finally got the Russian Civil War Armstrong-Whitworth Armoured Car from Copplestone completed and photographed. The new monitor and computer I set up…
Links of Interest, 14 May 2012
This should be worth watching: Curt of Analogue Hobbies is beginning a Great War in Greyscale project. Most figures in greyscale, officers in a very…
Books from Naval & Military Press
Back in April I made an order to Naval & Military Press, a UK-based specialty publisher with a focus on military history. The books arrived last week…
Armstrong-Whitworth Armoured Car, Part Three
It's been a bit quiet around here lately, which is entirely due to the fact that I finally bought a new computer and have spent the last week setting…
Armstrong-Whitworth Armoured Car, Part Two
The first armoured car for my Russian Civil War forces now has wheels attached, and I did the first round of weathering with pastel chalk dust.…
Armstrong-Whitworth Armoured Car, Part One
My recent order to Copplestone Castings included the first armoured vehicle for my Russian Civil War forces, a very nice resin and metal 1/56th scale…
A Red Nieuport, Part Three
Got the star insignia finished up on the Bolshevik Nieuport 17. Some of the stars are a bit wonky, but frankly that's historically accurate — a lot…
A Red Nieuport, Part Two
Got started on the insignia for the Bolshevik Nieuport. This is going to involve at least six freehand red stars; to skip one pair I've decided to go…
A Red Nieuport, Part One
Having built the White Russians a SPAD (Parts One, Two, Three), it's time to build the Nieuport 17 for my Bolshevik forces! As I mentioned in my…
Half-Timber & Rural British Architecture
The English Civil War has become a definite back-burner project around here, but it is still around, along with ambitions to make some more Western…
White Cossacks vs Red Machineguns
Introduced another local gamer to our Mud & Blood-powered Russian Civil War gaming on Sunday afternoon, it was a good little game although my…
A Russian Plank-Roofed Hut
Inspired by Tony's plank-roof hut tutorial that I linked to in my recent links of interest post, I sat down with stir sticks and my Xacto knives to…
Transporting the SPAD
Almost all of my gaming is done away from home, at other houses, up at the university on the weekend (our local miniatures group takes over a…
Even Whites Bleed Red, A RCW Encounter
The Trumpeter Salute convention last weekend saw the first full outing of my Russian Civil War forces, in a scenario I called Even Whites Bleed Red.…
Russian Civil War at Trumpeter Salute 2012
Ran my RCW game Saturday afternoon at the convention. Short version: everyone had a good time, but unlike our playtest a few weeks ago, the Whites…
Zulu War: A hospital unrelieved
And so the day began, much like the day before it, but with the promise of relief. Dust clouds had been seen along the road toward the main force,…
Red Airships!
I am, as mentioned in the last post, neck-deep in prep for my Russian Civil War game less than a week away at Trumpeter Salute 2012. Nevertheless,…
New Russian Buildings
I've been house- and cat-sitting for a relative in town the last ten days, so not a lot of action here on the blog, but I did take advantage of…
Reds, Squirrels, Whites and Others
We had an excellent Russian Civil War game using the TFL Mud & Blood rules Sunday afternoon. More people than I've seen in a while up at our…
Spectacular Zeppelin Model
Bit of a quiet week here on the Warbard. I've been burning up all my available hobby time painting Russian Civil War figures. There's two dozen…
Hordes of Zulus!
Zulus sir, thousands of them! Well, dozens at least. We have recently decided to start down the Zulu War path, but haven't made it very far down…
Pony up!
Everybody has played Cowboys and Indians before, but not many have experienced the insanity that is Pony Wars, a game designed deliberately to…
Fiskars Circle Cutter Review, and Markers for M&B
Back one of the before-Christmas sales, I picked up a Fiskars circle cutter on deep discount from one of the local art supply stores. It's been on my…
A SPAD for the Whites, Part Three
Finally swore the upper wing into place this evening. It's been years since I built a biplane model, I'd forgotten what a total bugger the struts and…
A SPAD for the Whites, Part Two
Inspired by this image from Wings Palette, I decided to give a bit of freehand a try. Via Wings Palette, a Russian SPAD 7 with a nifty…
A SPAD for the Whites, Part One
I should be working on finishing White Russian infantry, but I've allowed myself to become distracted by aircraft, specifically the SPAD 13 I wrote…
Russian Civil War Aviation
Rummaging around our local hobby store, I found the Testors Classics line of 1/48 scale aircraft. They're cheap (under $10 Cdn per kit) and basic…
The Russian Civil War at Trumpeter Salute
Sent off my request for a table to run a Russian Civil War game at Trumpeter Salute 2012 over in Vancouver (March 30, April 1 & 2, for those…
Onion Domes, Finished
It seems to be a week for belated followup reports to earlier posts here on the Warbard. Ah, well. I finished up the Russian church at the end of…
Onion Domes, Part One
Finally made it up to the local branch of Micheal's craft store after work Wednesday to hunt down material for the two domes of the Russian church. I…
Small Russian Church WiP
A quick pair of photos of the small Russian church I'm building for Russian Civil War gaming in 28mm. Earlier in January I discussed some planning…
Russian Huts Finished
It's been a bit of a slow ten days or so on the wargaming front around here; I wish I could say there was a proper reason, but I just haven't spent…
The Next Building Project
I don't usually like to talk about plans and ideas before there's at least some progress to show off, but while I was away over the New Year I had…
Second Russian House WiP
Started another Russian farmhouse on Boxing Day evening, this one slightly bigger than the first at 4"x2". I mentioned in the previous article…
Night Before the Night Before…
... and over at my place, I was hiding out, enjoying the last evening of solitary, productive peace and quiet I"ll have for a while, as the holiday…
Templates for Cards
Because I happen to have a stockpile of them around the place, several years ago I started using pre-punched Avery business card sheets as gaming…
More Autogyrations
Via Flickr user kitchener.lord, some still images of interwar autogyros recently posted. Most of what kitchener.lord posts is interwar…
RCW: Blundering Into Each Other
We had another round of Mud & Blood powered Russian Civil War action this afternoon, with a White composite platoon under a very dynamic officer…
RCW Cards & Blinds In The Flesh
Finally got around to printing and cutting out a full set of the Russian Civil War Mud & Blood cards I created a few weeks ago, as well as the…
Pearl Harbor, 70 Years Ago Today
Today is, of course, Pearl Harbor Day, and this year marks the 70th anniversary of that attack. I was on Maui for a vacation about 18 months ago,…
Reds & Whites in the Mud & the Blood
The Russian Civil War figures I've been painting had their first outing Saturday evening, as Corey and I lined them up and tried out Through the Mud…
First Mud & Blood Game This Evening
Quiet around here lately, primarily because all of my hobby time has been taken up painting White Russians for this evening's first outing of Russian…
RCW cards now uploaded
I have managed to sort out the technical difficulties, and the RCW Cards are now released. Check out the RCW Cards Released post for more…
RCW Cards Released for M&B
Red & White cards for RCW M&B You saw the preview here a few days ago, and now they're ready: the first release of my Initiative Cards for…
RCW Cards for Mud & Blood
A couple of cards for both sides for RCW-flavoured Mud & Blood gaming. The TFL rules "Through the Mud & the Blood" use a Game Deck of…
Minimal Maxim Basing
I've long been a fan of putting figures on the smallest bases they'll fit on and that'll keep them upright, when you're doing individual bases for…
Featherstone’s “Battles With Model Soldiers”
A friend scored this 1970 classic of our hobby when I was at BottosCon in Vancouver last week, and was kind enough to loan it to me right away, even…
Russian Civil War Blinds
A number of the TooFatLardies games, including Through The Mud And The Blood, feature "Blinds" — markers used on the table at the start of the game…
The Reds Are Coming!
There's 43 Bolsheviks off my painting table and ready for action, finally! One Maxim MG crew, some officers and NCOs and a whole lot of ragged,…
Pulpish Links of Interest, 13 October 2011
A miscelania of links, just so I get back into the habit of posting here! Adventures of the 19XX is a pulptastic webcomic, full of zeppelins,…
Messrs. Clarke & von Clausewitz
"Everything is very simple in War, but the simplest thing is difficult." — Carl von Clausewitz, On War Richard Clarke of TooFatLardies has…
Historical Gaming page
Created a new Historical Gaming page, which has replaced the ECW/TYW page in the top menu; there's also a matching Historicals category now to…
Great War Resources
Having recently picked up a copy of TooFatLardies' Great War large skirmish rules Through The Mud and the Blood, I went looking for further reading.…
Half-Timber Barn WiP Part II: Thatched Roof
Picked up a cheap towel to use as thatching. Here it is in a quickie late-night photograph, glue still wet on the roof of the half-timber…
Half-Timber Barn WiP
Something for the English Civil War/Thirty Years War table, as well as for pulp games set in the quainter parts of the UK or Europe! All those crops…
Photos from My First Thirty Years War Fight
Sunday the 29th of May we got together to do a four-player 1,000pt Field of Glory: Renaissance battle; this was bigger than had previously been…
ECW Painting, Other Randomness for 28 May 2011
An entire week since my last substantial post! The horror, how will our dedicated readership cope? I've been painting up an English Civil…
LPL5 Week 9: The Horse Again, I’m Afraid
Week 9? There was no Week 9. Well, OK, there was, but it involved me running my ECW Parliamentarian Horse again, and them getting beaten.…
LPL5 Week 8: For God And Parliament!
For the 5th Lead Painters League's 8th Round, something entirely new from me: 28mm English Civil War/Thirty Years War cavalry! These are Warlord…
LPL5 Week 7: The Lewis Gun
"Whatever happens, we have got/the Lewis gun, and they do not" — with apologies to Mr. Kipling, of course. My LPL5 Week 7 entry was more Brigade…
LPL5 Week 6: White Russians!
No, not the (very tasty!) drink, but White Russian Rifles from sometime in the Russian Civil War; the figures are 28mm from Brigade Games and very…
LPL5 Week 5: Hunting von Lettow-Vorbek
Week Five of the LAF's Lead Painters League having just ended, here's my entry. This was one of the bonus theme weeks; the bonus theme this time was…
LPL5 Week 2: Command On The Frontier
More goodness from the Lead Painters League, this time my Week Two entry, titled Command On The Frontier. The frontier in this case being the…
A White Russian, And Other News
A bit quieter around the Warbard right now; I'm having most of my gaming time sucked up by the Lead Painters League 5 and real life; Corey is however…