Snickering Corpses

Can anyone help with identifying these figures?



There has been a little speculation that they could be Scruby, but nothing concrete.

Naturally, now that I have the rules, I had to ponder about making armies. The person I blame most, though not the only one to blame, is David of the Miniature Minions blog. It was the thought of a Narnian army that led me across his blog and another website that had Narnian armies for HOTT.

However, first order of pondering is how to make HOTT armies from figures already on hand. I turned first to my sole box of Caesar 1/72 Samurai and Ninjas. This provides 16 Ninja figures, 1 mounted officer, 2 geisha or noble ladies, 4 bowmen, 4 heavily armored spearmen, 2 senior samurai, 4 lightly armored spearmen, and 4 lightly armored swordsmen. The excess of Ninja is a source of dithering, as they could be used as Sneakers, but the 3 point cost adds up fast and clashes with the rule about 3-4-6 point elements not being over 50% of your points. On the other hand, as Lurkers, the low cost leaves me potentially short on points without getting more figures. One set of options:

1 Blades General (2AP) - 2AP
3 Blades (2AP) - 6AP
1 Shooters (2AP) - 2AP
1 Heroes (4AP) - 4AP
2 Sneakers (3AP) - 6AP
2 Lurkers (1AP) - 2AP

That would leave me 2 points short.

Another ponder is taking my Thirty Years War figures and working out a HOTT semi-historical army for them.

Well, I finally reached a point that I could no longer resist the lure of Hordes of the Things. Today's mail brought my copy of the ruleset in, but I've not had time to look through it at any depth yet. I looked at a half dozen or so army lists that caught my eye as familiar subjects and that's about it. The brief glimpse was encouraging, however.

The most interesting thing about buying these, to me, was that I ordered a copy from a seller in England, and even with shipping the total was significantly cheaper than ordering it from the only US sources I've found.

Among the ideas for armies tickling my brain (not necessarily in order of priority):

1) Japanese Samurai
2) Chronicles of Narnia
3) Redwall
4) Redaemon Chronicles/OnePrince - humans, rats, the occasional badger, and 'spirit things'
5) English Civil War/Thirty Years War era - I wonder if the combined pike/musket nature of some of the units of this period may be an issue.
6) Archives of Anthropos - no end to the fantasy characters in this one... dragons, horsemen, medieval-style infantry, pegasi, harpies, magicians,...

Of course, it may be a while before I have figures for any of these. But they're fun to dream about, if nothing else.

Books
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Osprey Men-At-Arms 64 Napoleon's Cuirassiers and Carabiniers
Osprey Men-At-Arms 55 Napoleon's Dragoons and Lancers

25-30mm Old Glory
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SYWA-13 Austrian Hussar Command - complete (1 standard top broken off but present)
SYWA-08 Austrian Hungarian Grenadier Command - complete
SYWA-03 Austrian German Grenadier Command - 1 officer w/spontoon, 1 drummer, 1 standard bearer
SYWA-04 Austrian German Grenadier - 1 wounded marching hatless, 12 marching grenadier variants
?? unidentified 18th century - 2 officer marching with spontoon over shoulder, 2 officer standing with sword upright
AWI-21 British Grenadier March Attack - 1 officer, 1 standard, 1 fifer (I think), 1 drummer, 11 marching

25mm Barry Minot plastics
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2 Highlander
3 AWI light infantry advancing
2 AWI musketeer in tricorn advancing
16 AWI grenadier in bearskin advancing

30mm Spencer Smith plastics
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2 drummers (1 painted and based)

25mm Sash & Saber
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1 Prussian Grenadier Advancing Shoulder Arms (Prussian Cuffs)

1/72 Plastic Napoleonics - Boxed
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Manufacturer Code # Name Number of Boxes Number of Figures
Italeri 6058 British and Scots Infantry 1 50
Zvezda 8021 French Infantry 1 50

1/72 Plastic Napoleonics - Loose
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Manufacturer Code # Name Number of Figures
Esci 227 French Line Infantry 75
Esci 215 Napoleonic British Infantry 127
Airfix 01744 Waterloo French Infantry 141
Esci 214 French Imperial Guard 127
Airfix 01749 Waterloo French Imperial Guard 50
Airfix 01736 Waterloo French Cavalry 24

1/72 Plastic Samurai
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Caesar 003 Japan Samurai with Ninja - 1 box (with box, but off sprue, unpainted)

1/87 Vehicles
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Roco Marder I (missing targeting asembly on left of turret)
Roco fuel tractor/trailer (Z168 maybe, with scoop-entry on tractor?)(painted)
EKO WW2 dump truck
Roco water tank truck (Looks like the #148, only it has the scoop-entry rather than doors on the tractor)

1/72 Plastic WW2
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Airfix 01748 USAF Personnel (loose figures, but should all be present)
Airfix 01747 RAF Personnel (loose figures, but should all be present)

Having done some random bits of progressing the past couple of days, I decided it was time for one of the traditional cluttered workbench pictures, plus some updates. As usual, click on a picture for a larger version. First the cluttered workbench. Right now, there's nothing else demanding the bench, so I've got my wargaming stuff spread out on it, so I figured it was a good time to take a picture. It's actually slightly more cluttered now, as that shot was a couple of days before some of the latest work. Those who follow my SYW ImagiNations can see some of the primed and partly painted figures off to the right side of the desk. Top center is Delta Ceramcoat paints, with Vallejo paints at top right.

Next up, we have further progress on the 10mm ACW figures. I painted blanket rolls on two more stands, going with Vallejo 869 Basalt Gray this time.

I also decided to begin painting on the remaining two buildings that were still unpainted all this time. The next picture shows the JR Miniatures 15mm church from their Napoleonic French line. The stonework is done with Delta Ceramcoat 2442 Stonewedge. I'm still not totally decided if I like this. The doors and wooden trim are in Delta Ceramcoat 2055 Autumn Brown. For the roof, I'm thinking of going with a dark red color.

With a bit of left-over Autumn Brown from the above, I painted the spear shaft of the leftmost Warrior Frog in the next picture.

Next up, we hav the other "Servant's Quarters" building from JR Miniatures, again from their 15mm Napoleonic French line. I've undercoated it with my usual white acrylic gesso. I'm thinking of going for a blue shade possible for the walls of it; haven't decided for sure.

And last but not least, I've finally gotten up the courage to take one of the Paul Heiser 1/87 scale British Scout Carriers out of its bag, trim/sand/snip/poke the flash from (most of) it, and get an undercoat of white gesso on it. I've got another one of these to go after it, and want to get a few more to equip my partial carrier platoon. A look back at the workbench photo will reveal a German Sdkfz 250 also awaiting painting and assembly.

Thanks to a small contest, I received an Amazon gift certificate, which was spent on a variety of stuff, mostly DVDs/videos for family night, but first on my list was a copy of Barry J. Carter's "Naval Wargames" which is mostly focused on WW1 and WW2. This is another of those books I used to check out of the library in my late teens, and from which my best friend and I spent many hours cutting and writing on small cardboard counters for WW1 and WW2 fleets which were played out using these rules across a large living room floor. Good memories.

There's been a lot of activity on the sister-blogs, Hesse-Engelburg and Ober-Schweinsberg, but very little on this one. I have relatively little to report outside the SYW nations, but I have had some success in clearing out some of my unwanted wargaming items and adding some wanted ones.

Slowly, my wargaming library has grown, a book or a two at a time. I need to update that side listing pretty badly. It's well out of date.

Actual wargaming items have been limited to mostly SYW stuff, though I'm expecting a few more WW2 vehicles from a friend in the next few weeks.

I should compile a list of things I have to sell and post it here, just in case anyone's looking for them.

As my birthday was December 23rd, there's a mix of birthday and Christmas stuff to relate. With one exception, everyone's Christmas presents were off in the mail somewhere, but we had a lovely quiet Christmas involving parade, food, naps, and watching movies/DVDs.

Only one truly wargaming related present, in the form of a large collection of acrylic paints, mostly Delta Ceramcoat with a few oddities mixed in. The funny thing is, I put Delta Ceramcoat on my gift suggestion list specifically, as several folks had said they were very good, and the parents discovered a box of used ones that was sitting on a shelf for a year or more now, which my dad had acquired for a woodworking project.

Particularly good is the presence of various shades of greens and tans which will hopefully be useful for the World War 2 figures.

Also applicable to blogging was the provision of a new optical mouse to replace the old one, which started operating incorrectly a couple of months ago.

Besides that, there are 3 DVDs to watch: The Third Man, They Raid by Night (a British film from 1942 about Commando operations in Norway), and Submarine Base, which I think is a wartime US film.

All the previously mentioned incoming items have arrived, and one of them just left again today. I decided to sell the 1/1200 scale ships as they're very nice castings but I really decided I didn't need another period to deal with.

I'm experiencing some more turnover in my wargaming collection, and this is a good thing. New items are inbound, and I'm trying to get some old items sold/traded.

For sale/trade:
1) Roco Marder APC, complete except for the assembly on the left side of the gun mount.
2) ~1200 1/72 Plastic Napoleonic figures. I've got one guy with first dibs on these, then expect to list leftovers.
3) Old Glory 28mm Seven Years War Austrian Grenadiers - 35 figures, including a number of command figures.
4) Old Glory 28mm AWI British Grenadiers - 15-18 figures. I don't have the actual count handy at the moment.
5) I expect to put my 1/72 American Civil War figures up soon, due to one of the imminent arrivals.
6) 1/72 WW2 Airfix British 8th Army, 80+ figures. Additional WW2 figure lots should be pending as I sort through my collection.

Incoming Wargaming Stuff:
1) 2 big sets of dice, each containing 27 d6 and 4 of the special Warhammer style artillery dice. The d6s are in white for one set, and black for the other. This should mean I can start throwing a bucket of dice at once instead of throwing the same six dice endless numbers of times. ;)
2) Reaper figures: Alexis the Conjuror (intended to possibly be a figure for one of my 18th century royals); Bran O'Mannon Highlander Lord (2 copies); Oskar Dunmesser (a priest in knight's armor. I'll find *something* to do with him); Fynch Brassfrog Gnome Bard (this figure I just couldn't help but buy. It's too funny)
3) 1/1200 scale ships from the Armada era. 8 Caravel, 2 Galleas, 2 English Man of War, 2 Carrack, 4 Pinnace, 2 Spanish Treasure Galleons.
4) 10mm American Civil War. Roughly 500-600 figures, from both sides, infantry, cavalry, and artillery. Even some wagons. I'll probably hate myself for getting these, but at a grand total of $35 with shipping, compared to the cost of that number of figures new, I won't hate myself too badly. Hopefully, selling off my 1/72 will also dampen the price a little.

Let me also just make a comment about the Reaper figures. I don't usually buy fantasy figures, because that's not my genre. All of the figures bought are at least semi-historical, so I hope to be able to use them in what I'm doing. But I highly recommend anyone with a fantasy interest taking a look through this seller's figures, as they're selling them to finance hearing aids for their son. The sellers are well enough known in their gaming community for one of the figure companies to have donated a pro-painted figure for auction and have mentioned the news on TMP. The Ebay name is anatora. She even refunded part of my purchase, without my asking, as Ebay'd charged too much shipping. I'm impressed; that takes integrity.

October/November has proved to be an active period for me, but much of that activity has been in the realm of trading, buying, and selling troops and vehicles. I'm actively pursuing a goal of sending out items I don't have a need for, and getting in ones I do need/desire.

Recent acquisitions:

2 German Sdkfz 234/3 armored cars
1 German Kubelwagen car
1 German Schwimwagen car
4 German StuG III assault guns with the long 75mm cannon (to make a total of 6)
2 German StuG III assault guns with the short 75mm howitzer
2 US M36 Tank Destroyers (to make a total of 3)
1 British Churchill tank
1 US Sherman tank (to make a total of 6)
1 US Jeep (in need of a front axle repair)
half a Roco 105mm US Howitzer (I need the gun trails)
3 Roco (or clone) German motorcyclists (with MP44s on their back)

I'm still expecting delivery of 1 King Tiger tank.

In kit form, yet to be built, I've added 1 German Sdkfz 250/9 Neu w/20mm turret, and 2 British Scout Carrier Mk I.

Through an idea from the TooFatLardies Yahoo group, I've acquired a set of colored microbeads to use as unit designators on my WW2 infantry. They're a little more micro than I expected. :> I'll have to see whether I need to attach multiple of them instead of just one per level.

I've sorted out an infantry company from my German troops. I have additional units to sort out, and some units to re-sort, as I've shifted from using identical poses within squads to randomly pulling poses out of bags to get a good pose mixture for my WW2 figures.

I've recently obtained some RSM95 28mm Highlanders, which can be seen over on the Hesse-Engelburg blog. I need a few more to make a full battalion.

Also recently received are a set of 25mm WSS French samples from Imperialist Miniatures. You won't find them on the web, as they don't have a presence. But Robert from the Old School Wargaming group is fond of them and kindly offered to arrange samples for those who were interested in seeing them. More on this in a post soon at the Hesse-Engelburg blog, once I've gotten some pictures of them. They're about the same size as my 1/72 scale Italeri AWI British Light Dragoons, if slightly bulkier, so a bit smaller than RSM95s. Very lovely figures, though.

I'm awaiting delivery of a set of sample figures from Frank, and also expecting delivery of two additional figure sets: a group of 28mm Old Glory SYW Austrian Grenadiers, and a group of 28mm Old Glory AWI British Grenadiers.

On the computer gaming front, I've picked up a copy of Call of Duty 2, but I'm having tremendous problems with stuttering. I'm worried that it may be my video card is just not up to snuff.

Last, but by no means least, I'm expecting arrival of several books gifted free from a gamer friend cleaning out his own bookshelves.

Today I made an attempt to organize my troops, sorting out the British WW2 forces to try to create a proper Operation Warboard organization for them. But I find myself with the unusual problem of having too many troops now, rather than too few before. I suppose there's never really a balance of such things.

Yet, in spite of having too many troops, I have way too few of some types, with too many of others.

Useful British/Commonwealth forces available are:

Radios: 1 (only 1 despite having roughly 6-7 boxes worth of troops)
Officers/leader types: 17
Men with binoculars as spotters: 4
Bren guns: 40 (this is, in OWB terms, enough for more than 3 platoons composed solely of Bren guns!)
2-man PIAT teams: 10
2-man Vickers HMG teams: 3
2-man Mortar teams: 6
Other ranks with Sten guns: 16
Other ranks with Thompson SMG: 25
Other ranks with Enfield rifles: 138

In OWB terms, this gives me roughly 1 HMG platoon, 2 mortar platoons, and enough men for over 15 platoons of infantry.

Forces I'm not sure what to do with:

Minesweepers: 6 - useful in some scenarios, certainly, but what do I do with them otherwise? And do I draw troops from other types to fill this into some type of platoon sized unit?

Bagpipers: 4 - These might be useful for a morale boost, but would only fit for certain units

2-man HMG crews without guns: 4 - do I keep these about and look for guns, or dump them?

Men stabbing downward with their bayonets: 13 - These would be fine for dioramas, but kind of odd marching across a wargames table. Why must there be so many of them?

Riflemen in ANZAC Slouch Hats: 10 - My only problem with these is that they're only useful for desert or pacific battles, and I'm not sure whether to try to fill out an Aussie company with the non-slouch hats even though it wouldn't be usable in my European battles, or dump these off to someone who might need them.

Men helping wounded comrades: 2 - again, nice for dioramas, but not so useful for a wargaming table, unless you use casualty markers, which OWB rules don't. Possibility: could be used if evacuating wounded was a victory condition, perhaps relieving a position under fire or emptying a field hospital to avoid capture.