Lost & Replaced - Pocket Tripod for My Camera

No, no - this is not a return to the HG Wells theme, this is my replacement mini-tripod. I have to confess that this morning's logic workout was how to take a photo of my new tripod with a camera fitted to it. So I borrowed a camera - this is a body-double. It took a while, but I got there in the end.

 

I used to have one of these - it was very handy indeed. Light and very compact, I could stick it in my pocket. When fitted to the camera, it gave a very useful pistol-grip option, which is steadier and easier to keep level, and, of course, as a tripod it was very versatile - the bendy legs allowed all sorts of camera heights and angles, and it was great for close-up pics on the wargames table.

Sadly, it was also ideal for putting down somewhere, and losing sight of. About two years ago, I lost it. I think I took it somewhere, and forgot to bring it back. If it had been more substantial and more expensive, I hear you thinking, I'd have taken more care of it. Well - not necessarily, but I know what you are saying.

I decided a while ago that I'd better replace it, and, of course, the 5-minute job of ordering one fell down a very deep well as soon as I saw what was on the market. There are all sorts of bigger and fancier ones, ones with self-levelling platforms, ones with remote-controlled motorised panning, I even saw one with BlueTooth, but what the BT does I can't imagine. So it became obvious very quickly that there was a big market, and I was going to have to take this seriously, and do some proper research, and buy one that was not a toy, and did not come at toy prices.

Well, after about a year of avoiding this extravaganza, I decided that what I really wanted was something light and simple - something very like my old one, in fact.

The other day I found exactly the same tripod on eBay. I ordered one, it arrived in 3 days. £2.99, post free. Goodness me - this Cheap & Cheerful thread is gaining some momentum! The tripod is identical to the old one. Yes, yes - I know - you think I'm going to leave it lying somewhere stupid, in identical reprise of history, and lose the beggar, don't you? Well, it's possible, but, since I have now, at long last, bought a replacement, I am certain that I will find the original one in a pocket of my away-days hold-all bag almost immediately, so I just know I will have a spare handy.

WSS: Cheap & Cheerful - "Limbered" Markers

 It became obvious during my recent playtest session for my WSS rules that something needed to be done about artillery limbers - there aren't any in the game, and my batteries (unusually for me) each consist of only a single gun. I had thought in general terms that I could merely place the gun back to front and that meant it was limbered up. Certainly I have no appetite at all for building proper limber teams, but the back-to-front convention proves to be untrustworthy, and it looks daft anyway.

So I've come up with a cheap, easy solution; there are now markers which can be placed next to the gun when it is limbered up - the gun has to be reversed, so that the trail is towards the horses, but it is now obvious what is going on, and in which direction the contraption is travelling. 

At first I thought, "Oh gosh, I'm going to have to get proper limbers, in 20mm scale, and that means they will have to be painted correctly for each nation - oooh - etc etc". Further, since cannon in the early 1700s each weighed about as much as your average Gothic cathedral, a proper limber team would need enormous numbers of horses, and I really was beginning to hate the whole idea. Amongst the spare figures I have from the Eric Knowles Hoard, there are a decent number of suitable draught horses, so my wizard wheeze was that a simple pair of horses, on a separate base, could be stood next to a gun, and that would suffice. 

Next I went through a tense couple of hours while I decided whether I could be bothered making up some drivers to look after these teams. There is a very useful Hinton Hunt ECW gun crew member who isn't actually doing anything, and I have some of these, so I decided I could hack a few heads off, replace with Irregular tricorn heads, and so on. Again, the job was getting fiddly. So I went back into the Spares Boxes and found enough odd artillery figures to fill the bill. I chose figures armed with sticks or poles of some sort - to encourage the cuddies. Already painted (thank you, Eric), all they and the horses needed was a bath, some gloss varnish and a nice new base - the aim, by now, was to have generic counters which would do for anyone. The driver, of course, may be dressed in any old uniform, but I don't care. The reasoning is:

(1) the artillery train and drivers were mostly civilians, so the driver may be wearing some unknown livery used by the contractor, or may be a soldier helping out, or may be wearing captured clothing, or anything, really. It's only a bloody game, for goodness sake.

(2) the limber is there somewhere, you just can't see it. 

(3) if you hang around for a while, when the gun comes into action the counter will be removed and is unlikely to be seen again - this would be a sad fate for an 8-horse limber team painted to museum standard.

Anyway, the whole project took me about 3 hours and was entirely supplied by existing spare parts - I even used my standard 50x45 MDF bases, of which I have bags (literally). Job done. Scrooge McFoy Productions triumph again.

Here you go - a supply of generic "limbered" markers. Available to all-comers

And here's one in use, contracted to the Imperial Army - yes, that's correct, the unit is obviously travelling to the left; the gun crew like to watch to see where they've been

Chandler: The Dedication I Missed...

A few weeks ago I was chortling about the £6 second-hand book I bought online which turned out to have been the property of Charlie Wesencraft, as evidenced by a personal library plate on the front end-papers..

Since Charlie was a great friend of the late David Chandler, and it was one of Chandler's books, I made joking references to the fact that I had fleeting hopes that I might have got a signed copy for my £6, but it wasn't to be.

In fact it turns out that it is a signed copy - I was just too stupid to spot it. Here you go - front title page:

I have to say I feel a little awkward about this, bearing in mind that Charlie is still going strong, and wargaming regularly. I imagine that, like all of us, he has thinned down his library from time to time, so the book I bought recently would have been in circulation for perfectly legitimate reasons, and I'm just lucky to have chanced upon it. However, if it were all a mistake, and he would really like to have it back, I'm open to approaches. Mind you, Charlie would have to sign a few books from my own collection as part of the agreement...

Nerds' Corner: Some Mystery Figures...

These aren't mine - any idea what they are? The figures in question are the British Waterloo-period Life Guards at the back of this photo. They are, as you see, of very slim build, and lanky (for comparison purposes, the figures at the front are Alberkens, which are the same size as Hinton Hunts).

Suggestions thus far are Greenwood & Ball, or possibly Stadden from his Tradition period. They have soldered-on sheet metal bases, with corners clipped. I rather like the Old School appearance, but I think they may be too toy-like for Stadden.

Any thoughts?

WSS - A Little Rules Playtesting

I'm pleased to have made good progress with my new rules for the WSS project. This is closely related with having coerced a little external help. The excellent nundanket kindly did some reading of them for me,  a few weeks ago, and made some useful (and probably tactful!) suggestions, which I've incorporated. 

The huge advantage of getting someone else involved in the production of wargames rules is very similar to the advantage of getting someone else to proof-read your writings - maybe getting someone else to check a description of your computer system is a better parallel; if you check your own stuff, you'll do it armed with the background knowledge that you didn't write down, and you'll find that what you've written is pretty much what you meant. An independent checker will find the holes and the nonsense that you didn't even consider.

Yesterday's positive step was that Stryker very kindly volunteered to help out with some Zoom-based playtesting. Despite my broadband supplier's attempt to scupper the whole idea, we did get running, about 30 minutes late, and played through a very simple game situation. It was very good - time well spent.

I learned two principal things:

(1) there are a lot of things to look at, and sort out - I took a lot of notes!

(2) the game is actually a lot more entertaining than I had feared it might be.

Not much to say about the rules yet, except that they are provisionally titled Prinz Eugen - entirely because Eugen is such an alternative hero, given his rather bizarre lifestyle, that it amuses me to feature him in this role. Sincere thanks to Stryker for his time and willingness to have a go - very useful, and much appreciated.

I include some pictures, partly to commemorate the fact that the event took place, and partly to let Ian see what the 20mm troops look like on the table, in rather better resolution than is possible via my Zoom set-up!

Typical testing session - random tiddlywinks and sticking-plasters (and cotton-wool puffs of smoke!)             

Featherstonia: Tony Bath's Rules for 1750 Period Wargames

With many thanks, yet again, to Albannach, the Keeper of the Scrolls, here is another of the rules publications of Wargamer's Newsletter, from another century. Please handle them carefully, and enjoy the read!

One Crossed Off the Job List...

 

According to this blog, in October 2011 I added the Lanceros de Castilla to my 1812-period Spanish army, and I made a note at the time that I needed to fit red pennons to their lances. Almost nine years later, gentlemen, I have not done anything about this, but, before you gasp in astonished disappointment, let me add that this very week I have read that it is very probable that this regiment did not fit their pennons when on campaign.

YES.

That will do nicely.

I shall now amend my Napoleonic Catalogue notes to say that this unit is complete, and I shall move on. Another triumph. Just goes to prove that you should never rush into anything. That was smart planning on my part, to delay this little job. What's that I hear? Do I have any confirmation or cross reference for this new information I have read? I regret that I have now placed my fingers in my ears, and am singing, very loudly.

 TRALALALALALA!