Cangames 2013 and the People's Choice Award

The People’s Choice Award is the only award offered at Cangames 2013 for painting figures.   At the Sunday evening awards ceremony, I was extremely pleased that one of my two entries was selected as the people’s choice. It was in competition with 15 or 20 other entries. 

The award is a $25 Cangames Certificate which I can use it at any Cangames vendor or with the Cangames organization itself.

Compared to many of the Blogs I follow, My paint jobs don’t measure up, but I paint in order to play. The photographs of the miniatures on my posts display many imperfections, but my figures easily stand up to the three foot rule, which is how they were judged. 

The winning entry was the Nikaian Byzantine Army (DBA IV 31) that was loaned to Paul for use at the DBA open book round robin competition held immediately after the awards ceremony. In 2010 I won this army for a 2nd place finish in the same tournament. 

I was told that it was the first time in many years that a historically based unit (or figure) was chosen as the winner. In recent years the award has gone to fantasy figures.

Cangames 2013 and the Atlantic Simulation Society Presence

This years’ edition of Cangames, held in Ottawa, over the Victoria Day weekend of Friday May 17th to Sunday May 19th at the Rideau Curling Club. Unlike last year, I made notes of my activities and will produce a comprehensive After the Action report.

For the second year is a roll, long-time war gaming buddies from Halifax joined me in Ottawa for the convention. Paul Smith flew up the Wednesday before the con and stayed with me in Montreal. We got in a practice game of Panzergruppe Guderian and on Thursday I introduced him to DBA. 

We played four practice games I used the army I purchased last year, Seleucid 166-83BC (Book II/19d) and Paul exercised his generalship using a Nikaian Byzantine (Book IV/31) army. It was a useful review for me and  good practice for Paul, who used to play WRG Ancients 5th and 6th edition with his 25mm Byzantine army. 

Friday morning Paul, Mike Haynes and I drove up to Ottawa. I've known Mike since High School when we gamed together in the same club. He was a year ahead of me. Mike has been living in Montreal just around the corner since last fall, while he worked on his latest book, Hiking Trails of Montreal and Beyond which is now available from Goose Lane Editions.

Paul is a couple of years older than both of us and always seemed to be involved in an administrative role in our local war gaming umbrella groups. First with the Halifax-Dartmouth Wargaming League and later the Atlantic Simulation Society.  He was the prime mover behind the rebirth of the Association after a hiatus of almost 30 years and the production of our golf shirts last year. 

 

Members of the Atlantic Simulation Society

 (L-R) Mike Haynes, Paul Smith, Joseph Lappin, 

Robert Hingley, Stuart Smith, and Stephen St-John

We were joined in Ottawa by Joseph Lappin, who flew in from Halifax on Friday morning. We four, crashed the entire weekend with Paul’s son Stuart. It was like university days: a weekend of gaming, with late night pizza and beer. It was really convenient that Stuart’s apartment was just a 10 minute walk from the convention site.  As seen below, it might not have been the easiest walk, but Ottawa’s Chinatown was just around the corner from both the curling club and our home base. 

On another note, Stuart plans on moving, before we return next year. Thank you Stuart for both your patience and hospitality.  We all agreed that we enjoyed our time at the con and look forward to returning next year. As a group we hope to contribute with some sort of game or competition.

Traveller 5 by Marc Miller

Thanks to a successful fund raising campaign on Kickstarter, this long awaited upgrade and rewrite of the classic science fiction RPG by Marc Miller is now available. As a purchaser of the Traveller T5 (Bata version) 

I was considered an early supporter and qualified to receive the final product in CDROM format along with my Patent of Nobility, as a Knight of the Iridium Throne.

My home planet Holt (B8D7346-C), located in  sector 0133 is a fairly backwater world, far from the centre of Imperium.

The map above is from The Traveller Map.

Work in Progress, or another use for a Cribbage Board

A tin that has made it to the top of the pile, is a unit of Hungarian Light Calvary that I consider a great eBay purchase. It consisted of 10 Elements mounted on Litko Magnetic Bases. The horses were already painted. About half became loose during their travels but no harm was done. The horsemen were already primed.

Old Glory Horses on Litko Bases

Today I hot-glued the riders to the heads of nails. Instead of digging out a piece of styrofloam I grabbed a cribbage board off my bookcase. It served the purpose. Comme on dit en français: «Regarde».

Work in Progress, WW2 Soviets

My collection of World War II Soviet skirmish figures continues to grow. This time I am experimenting with the Army Painter system. The figures were primed and then sprayed with Leather Brown. When I have finished painting the details I plan to wash half the figures with Minwax Wood Stain (English Oak)  and the other half with Liquitex Transparent Burnt Umber. I washed my 15mn Hussite Army by the 2nd method and I like the effect.

These figures are a mix of West Wind and Black Tree.

DBA Army IV/80 Hussite 1419-1434AD and 1464-1471AD

The genesis of this army was the purchase of a box of assorted 15mm Dark Age miniatures at Cangames 2011 in Ottawa. Included were three packages of Hussite War Wagons by Thistle and Rose. According to the Miniatures Page (Updated June 20, 2003) the company was no longer in production. Each pack contained two WWgs , each of a different design with 4 draft horses and 4 oxen. There were no crew members. 

Hussite War Wagons each with three Shooters

Later that year I was fortunate enough to win three separate auctions on eBay that provided the crew of the wagons and the figures to fill up the ranks. These were packages of older 15mm Minifies. There was one command package (10 figures), one package of shooters (12 hand gunners and 12 bowmen) and a package of infantry (12 Military Flail men and 12 Halberdiers). 

These are a couple of shots of the figures as they were being worked on.

 

I was able to place 3 shooters into each wagon, two hand gunners, but only one bowman. It should be a crossbowmen, but I'll take what I can get. The remaining archers formed two elements of 4Bow, not exactly on the list but who cares.

4Bd (Gen) and 3 Elements 4Bd (Flails & Halberdiers)

3Kn (General)

IV/80 Hussite 1419-1434AD & 1464-1471AD
Arable, Ag 11 x 3Kn or 4Bd (Gen) 

1 x 2LH
5  x WWg
4 x 4Bd (units of mixed Flail men and Halberdiers)
1 x Art

Current Hussite Troops

As you can see I have almost enough troops to field two Hussite Armies. I need to acquire three more WWgs, 2x 2LH, 2 x 4Bd and 2 x Art. I can cannibalize the LH and Art from my Renaissance armies, as I did with the elements of Knights.

War Wagon (Unknown Make)