Gaming Mats

Don't You Love A Bargain? Gaming Mats

I have seen loads of different gaming mats over the years, lots of styles and prices with variable quality. So when I came across this EBay listing for a brand new gaming mat I just felt I could not resist it, I paid £43-95 including delivery

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Battlefront-Official-Double-Sided-Gaming-Mat-/254175583936?nma=true&si=zRenkJs%252BuTqbl1m6UNXE2eOigxE%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

The mat retails for £70 in the UK

https://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=5447 Mat Code BB951

Its made of a rubberised material and double sided grass and desert. Its very high quality and will be gracing my gaming table quite soon.

When you spend £44 for a gaming mat you need to make sure that its protected from damage when not in use so I had to buy a storage tube as well. Fortunately Wayland Games sell these for 4 foot mats.https://www.waylandgames.co.uk/aerial-bay-mats/32114-4ft-gaming-mat-storage-and-carrying-bags?search_query=mat+bag&results=777

Their website sells them for £6-90 but they are on 5% off at present.

I noticed their gaming mats are on 20% off too meaning I could have bought this mat from them new for £55-56 instead of £70 but I still saved myself over £11-50 on the sale price so I am still happy just not as rich as I thought I was!

Further to this dont you find it really annoying when your gaming mat/cloth slides all over the table top? A friend at the club sent me a link to a product he was told about by a mutual friend on Amazon.  https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B077MN7HXN/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Used on hard floors as an underlay to stop carpets sliding around and its brilliant on gaming mats too!

Depictions of Richard III at Bosworth

King Richard the Third at Bosworth

Having had my interest raised about the War of the Roses I have done some research on Richard III at Bosworth. There's plenty of dodgy images out there on Google but the more reputable artists seem to have followed correct images of how a Sovereign might look. Having seen some of the images I now need to decide what look I will go for.

Here are a few images looted from the WWW, their copyrights are not mine and this blog entry is written for information and research.

Hussite Infantry - Part 4

Yet More Warwagons!

Whilst working on Project Lead Mountain and other armies I often end up buying figures that I then decide that I don't like and buy something else instead. This happened with my Later Polish Army project when I ended up buying QR Models instead of using the Irregular Warwagons.

The reason I didn't use them was to be honest the axles supplied with the wagons were too short to fit the wheels on to the underside of the wagons without them sitting at a totally crazy angle.

After completing all the four Falcon Warwagons in my previous Hussite blog entry I felt sufficiently encouraged to try and finally finish these Irregular casting code 15/13. Having discarded the Falcon Oxen into my spares I had two options, I could cut the axles into equal halves and glue the stubs further out with a gap in the middle or I could try to build up the underneath of the wagons to ensure the wheels were clear. I elected to go down the second route as it seemed to give a better visual effect.

Here is the assembled wagon next to the giant Falcon Oxen.

The crew are a mix of Irregular drivers, old Mikes Models Halberdiers, Essex Crossbowmen and Venexia Handgunners. Since they were all from my spares mountain I am very pleased with how they turned out and I plan to sell them on. They are mounted on magnetised plastic sheeting, covered with Vallejo Earth Brown paste edged with Raw Umber paint, finished off with some gravel, grass tufts and flowers from Mick's Bit's. Update now SOLD!

Communal Italian Plaustrella in 15mm

Communal Italian Plaustrella Reg WWg X

The DBM/DBMM Communal Italian army list had the option of taking six Plaustrella. There are man pushed carts used to support close combat assaults by breaking up enemy lines.

There are very few illustrations of what they looked like but I have found images from Luke Ueda-Sarson, Tagmata and others copied below as inspiration.

I took the verbal description and created my own version of these unique war engines about 20 years ago. Back then I based my elements all over with static grass and they are now going bald so needed to be rebased. I have put a couple of pictures below showing how they looked before I redid the bases along with images of them in use from a game back in 2012 where my scratchbuilt Warwagon Siege Towers dominated the battlefield.

28mm Unknown

Luke Ueda-Sarson

Tagmata

Eric Donaldson

Hussite Infantry - Part 3

Note Strictly Hussite Infantry - Warwagons

As part of my ongoing scan of EBay a while back I spotted a lot consisting of four Falcon Figures Hussite Warwagons. Falcon Figures are virtually unobtainable in the UK after the range was sold to an American many years ago and their reputation for supplying orders is to put it politely "very poor" so I took a punt on them and got them for what I considered a bargain price. The warwagons came in two codes, ELM21 Warwagon with 4 Oxen & 4 crew and ELM 23 Warwagon with four Oxen & 4 crew, light artillery. ELM21 actually has 5 crew not 4.

Given the age of the castings I was very surprised how nice they were. The design is a bit suspect because the side door could not be opened as the wheels would be in the way. Also the oxen were 20mm tall so more akin to Auroch than any sort of normal oxen for this era, [More of this later].

I decided that given the poor scale of the oxen I would replace them with 15mm Irregular limber teams from my spares box. Other than that the castings were cleaned up, assembled and painted right out of the bags. They are mounted on magnetised plastic sheeting, covered with Vallejo Earth Brown paste edged with Raw Umber paint, finished off with some gravel, grass tufts and flowers from Micks Bits.

I have another 4 Irregular and 1 Essex warwagon still to complete and in theory if I am not too choosy I could field all 22 warwagons as per the Hussite list. It's not an army I have any desire to collect and as soon as the last five warwagons are completed I shall have to decide what if any I intend to keep because I need some to use with my Lithuanian army. Though I can use my Hungarian or Polish warwagons at a push. I also have the four generic Hungarian warwagons that I blogged about in this post that are spare. https://drewjarman.blogspot.com/2018/09/when-ebay-strikes-hide-your-credit-card.html

Falcon Figures ELM23

Falcon Figures ELM21

The giant Falcon Oxen

Placed in front of an Irregular Warwagon

In front of the Falcon Warwagon with the Irregular limber team