I was born in East Orange, raised in Bloomfield, and went to school somewhere around Newark until my parents launched an exodus across NJ. I have been lucky enough to travel abroad. I read, play a couple of musical instruments, like movies, and do what I can to improve a rapidly aging body and mind. I currently work in Texas and live in Florida. I have moved over two dozen times in my life. My tiny armies and navies have followed me on my march across the US. Eventually we hope to end our nomadic existence and settle in one place.
Large flamboyant figures in 28mm by Foundry, a group of Renaissance-era knights. The online Foundry site shows the armor brightly painted and I have not hesitated to follow suit.
People seem unduly impressed by the candy-stripe lances though the technique is pretty simple. Paint the pike the base color then cut a thin strip of masking tape and wrap it around the lance from base to point. Paint a nice contrasting color, let it dry, and remove the tape. Masking with tape is not too difficult and rather helpful with more intricate patterns on figures this large.
One helpful thing to keep in mind is that horse armor in the period was crafted in both leather and metal. These could be distinguished by the cords used to lace leather armor together, cords absent on metal armor. While metal armor was usually some metallic shade, leather armor was frequently painted in flamboyant colors. It is helpful to be able to spot the difference when painting horse armor from this era.
15mm Essex Late Middle Ages figures. Fair warning that I no longer try for historical accuracy in painting. I am less than convinced by the standards often used to make a determination. Frankly, I just like to know which side is which.
After a few years, a larger army. It grows when the time is available. Still, mostly Essex. Tents are Baueda.
A large grouping of Assyrian soldiers in 15mm by Essex painted about as brightly as I could. Chariots are a pain in the neck to paint, even worse than cavalry but what would an ancient army be without chariots? All figures are mounted for Empire which seems to use a narrow depth for its base. Likely these will all be rebased at some point for DBM.
Here, I am leaning heavily on acrylics with enamels only in evidence in the metallic parts. Because I am trying to paint quickly, some faces are a bit askew but the overall effect from a distance is good. Time for painting is limited so I must get as many as is reasonable done in a relatively short time. One might also notice my annoying tendency to give everyone blue eyes. I had no desire to focus on any historical information here but rather painted an army I thought would look interesting, using both pure and mixed colors with a limited palette leaning heavily on green, red, brown, and blue.
Romans in 6mm. The beauty of the 6mm scale is that it is possible to crowd a huge number of figures into a small space. With such a small size, individual details are swallowed up and one simply sees a mass of figures. This works well with ordered ranks of Romans. It becomes possible to use a smaller table space while crowding each base with masses of figures. Here, there are 20 figures to each base for a total of 80 figures, what you would expect in a century. However, for sanity’s sake, each block represents a cohort, each colored shield group a legion.
This is an old paint job on figures by Heroics Ros. I always mean to get back and do some more but that is the history of figure painting for me. The best approach for figures like this is an almost mechanical application of paint in broad colors with a minimum of detail. Still, with a little more time, errors on the shields could be corrected and some simple design applied. But in some respects too much detail would take away one of the pleasures of this scale that fine detail is imperceptible during gaming. We see the serried ranks of soldiers and little more even if every feature is finely detailed.
Time passes and the Romans have increased in number to just under 300 figures.Now, over 400 figures. It is getting difficult to find more packs of Romans in the boxes still unpainted.
No surprise here, Battletech moves readily between miniatures, boardgames, and computer games. Below are some of the maps produced for use with Battletech. One side of the map focuses on a particular type of terrain, the other is a hexagonal grid on white. Cardboard cutouts were used to display things like office buildings and houses.
The Mechs of course stood up straight and tall and towered over everything around them. Why not? Every other piece on the board was flat. Nevertheless, the game looked good even with just cardboard. In some ways, the often amateurish scenery that appears in games is not as compelling as the scenery on the attractive boards.
For those unfamiliar with the game, playing pieces are giant piloted robots packed with weapons. Their Achilles Heel is their susceptibility to heat overload. The robot can fire weapons, take hits, and move but it pays the price by building up heat. Heat and battle damage, weapons systems and their ammunition are tracked on an elaborate chart much like warships in naval wargames.
Advanced Squad Leader was certainly one of those games that came close to a miniatures game. As the rules blossomed into multiple volumes and were finally consolidated into a huge 3-ring binder, Avalon Hill developed a series of larger game boards for use with miniatures. Below is one of the boards from Hedgerow Hell, one of the two deluxe modules.
Like almost all RPGs, Traveller uses miniatures but Traveller also relies heavily on boards for conflict resolution. Below is a nice example from Fasa’s hotel complex.
Based on the climactic assault by James Bond and assorted ninjas and intelligence operatives on a secret rocket launching base hidden in a volcano in Japan, the game pieces seem pretty generic and some miniatures would definitely spruce things up. The game seems made for that kind of conversion. It uses a chit-activation system and supposedly can be played solo.
The game was actually part of a larger James Bond role-playing system which offered under license an impressive range of components. The game was apparently successful but when the license lapsed in 1987, the game went out of print.
Vehicles from the still available Laserburn 15mm SF series. Here the top portion of the vehicle is the same while a separate bottom piece is used to generate wheeled or ant-grav propulsion.
Laserburn was a set of rules and miniatures for science fiction figures in 15mm. The rules were written by Bryan Ansell and figures apparently sculpted by him as well and sold under Tabletop Games banner. The vehicle range is limited but reasonable. The vehicles have a comic book flavor to them and are still available online. These do not have the fine machined surfaces of vehicles like the GHQ line but work well with Traveller which also initially used 15mm figures.
Mega Force vehicles by Kenner. These are part of a larger series of vehicles for two opposing armies. Small vehicles are metal with plastic detail. Larger vehicles were plastic. These can still be found for sale at nominal prices.
On some occasions, a toy company produces something unique and Kenner’s Megaforce toy series certainly qualifies. Two countries, V-Rocs and Triax are represented by equivalent ranges of vehicles (alas, no infantry) from tanks and helicopters to enormous command bases and flying platforms. Series 1 was released in 1989 and another series was meant to follow but the line languished and ended up on the racks of Kaybee Toys and Hobbies where old toys went to die.
The smaller vehcles are diecast metal, larger are plastic. All were packaged with some sort of bonus piece. The vehicles seem to mesh well with 6mm figures though I have yet to do much with them. Vehicles can still be found for sale at nominal prices even in the original packaging. For someone looking for a quick inexpensive armor force, these are ideal. All are prepainted and marked. It is one of those nice instances where wargamers can make ready use of off-the-shelf toys.
![IMG_2903[1]](https://i0.wp.com/littlemenatwar.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/IMG_29031-e1427658740559.jpg?ssl=1)
