Burn baby burn.

I'm typing this entry one-handed, courtesy of a run-in with a rogue barbecue an hour or so ago.  Remember in the cartoons when someone hurts their hand and it glows red and throbbingly balloons up to triple size?  It feels kinda like that.  I've suddenly a lot of sympathy for Brother Kinch's "Sausage Finger Syndrome" appeal.  Anyway, excuse if this entry's a little terse as a result.

This weekend was Phalanx in St Helens, which is the closest thing to a local wargames show (not counting Britcon, which is more focussed on competitive gaming) so Mi Hermano Algo Jonesy toddled along to take a look.  Sadly I forgot to take a camera so no pictures.

Got a chance to chat with our old friends at Black Pyramid, who were showing off their first production cast of the new steampunk artillery.  We also chatted about the possibility of some custom figures, using bits from their multipart range (which is expanding BTW to include sailor suits and pork-pie hats.)

Next, our comiserations go out to Andy from Ainsty Castings, who had a greatly reduced stall courtesy of the thieves who broke into his loaded van the night before.  He was however taking orders and offering free postage.  Ainsty's definitely good people to buy from - a few months back when I queried a long delayed order from them, the answer came back minutes later with an apology and offer of Free Stuff(TM) to compensate.  Good People.

Warbases, another favourite supplier of mine were also at the show, and we discussed the possibility of a custom mod to one of their building kits.  Hopefully more on that later.

On the demo game front, one of the first tables I saw when I walked in the hall was a lovely Empire Of The Dead demo, which seemed to have a lot of the same buildings that I have, only looking ten times better.  It included Warbases and Sarissa Precision buildings and the same mix of horse-drawn vehicles that I have (Westwind, Lledo and even the Golden Compass coach)

I don't remember seeing much else on the VSF front, although there were two VBCW demo games, one by GWP regular Wingate featuring a spectacular city layout in 20mm, the other in 28mm run by Axis Of Naughtiness reader "Adam from Lancashire", who I completely failed to recognize until he commented on my last post here.

As for spending money at the show, I didn't add too much to the lead & resin mountain.  A few ex-Marbeth Designs 28mm vehicles (Sci-Fi, but all usable for the Paradiso project), a can of out-of-production Navy Blue Army Painter primer, and the latest VBCW book (the Albertine sourcebook).  Prize of the show however was a box of resin & plaster pillars on the bring & buy, for the grand total of £5.

One thing about the Victorians is they did so love their statuary.  The huge columns need to be topped with 54mm miniatures to make for really impressive, Nelson's Column scale monuments, while the smaller intact columns and pedastals will work with 28mm-40mm figures for slightly more modest tableaux.

We left the show not long after lunch and headed off for some more shopping in nearby Warrington.  After a brief stop at Ikea (more on that later) we hit the Toys R Us superstore looking for, well... toys.  Jonesy added a couple more kits to his Lego-for-wargaming collection, but I scored what I think was the Bargain Of The Month.  They had about half a dozen GI-Joe Mole Pod toys for only £4.99 each.

These look pretty much spot on for each holding a 10 man GASLIGHT unit, and with them I'll be able to deploy all of my Evil Genius Masked Minions by molemachine.  The similarly sized drilling machine from Ironclad costs £15 each, and here I have a fleet of four for £20.  Can''t wait to see what they look like in the Evil Genius colours of burgundy and gold.

Oh, and the trip to Ikea?  Well you've already seen the result of that..sorta..   Hang on while I take another photo...

My storeroom has finally been upgraded to the status of proper Man Cave with this little Expedit unit which will double as a worktop/painting station.  That's an original EeePC with a 7" screen on there (which I'm actually typing this on) which will generally be shoved off to one side to provide audio entertainment while I work.  The Expedit shelves give space for my paints, tools and any works in progress, and this little workstation means I won't have to mess up either the bedroom or the living room with wargaming clutter.

Coming next - a report on Sunday's gaming extravaganza and the announcement of Birthday Bash II: Aetheric Boogaloo!

Some talk of Alexander, some talk of Hercules

Because You Asked for It (tm).  I don't claim to be any more than a competent painter, if that, and I paint to get figures onto the gaming table, no more than that.

The Ironclad British Guardsmen (Painted as Grenadier Guards*)

(According to Wikipedia, Regiments of Foot Guards can be identified by a combination of the spacing of their tunic buttons and the colour of their plumes.  Since the tunic buttons aren't really visible on any but the officers, I've settled for just using the plume, which is white in the case of these chaps)

The ten on the left were painted last summer for the Big Birthday Bash, the ten on the right I completed last week to make up the full company (20 man) strength.  I dunno, I just find something wonderfully archaic about bearskins on the battlefield.  It just seems to lend the affair a touch of class.

I've rather gone off the Ironclad troops.  They're nice enough and fit in well with all the other ranges, but as I've mentioned before they all had a problem with blocking between the body and weapon.  If I buy any more regulars in Home Service Helmet, they're almost certainly going to be from Redoubt, but for Guardsmen, Ironclad remain the only game in town.

As an aside, you may notice that these figures are mounted into movement trays.  These are from Warbases.co.uk and they're designed to fit UK one penny pieces.  These ten-man trays cost a pound each and come as bare MDF, which I've simply flocked. (Other combinations are available, along with a similar range that fits 2p pieces).  I'm hoping that these movement trays are going to facilitate larger battles, and have sent Warbases a query about getting some custom trays made for my cavalry and artillery.

Now although I painted these next chaps months ago, it just occurred to me that I'd never posted pics of them, although I remember talking at length about how frustrating it was to assemble them.  Ladies and Gentlemen, the men of the 23rd Regiment, Special Aether Service....

 I'd wanted to do an explicitly steampunk or VSF unit, as opposed to most of the troops I've painted which wouldn't look out of place in an entirely historical game.  One of the most enduring images from my childhood was that of the SAS assault on the Iranian Embassy Siege of 1980.  I wanted to capture the flavour of the black-clad SAS troopers in NBC assault gear, but with a Victorian/Steampunk twist.

Now as it happens, Black Pyramid were running a promotion at the time for their new landship models, where for every landship you bought you could get a free pack of figures.  I hadn't realised this, so when they mailed me to ask what free packs I would like it was a pleasant surprise.  The default Tea Wars figures come with tropical style sun helmets, no good for those of us fighting on the home front, but they did do separate heads with a spiked helmets and gasmasks.  These were no good to me normally either, as I don't use poison gas weapons in my VSF (it being a little to grim & WWI)

But for special, shock troops they'd be perfect.  With the Air becoming Aether, they had even more justification for wearing breathing apparatus.  So I ordered a Command figure pack to make up the complete unit and enough spike helmet gasmask heads to convert them all.  Rather then red jackets, I wanted to capture the "SAS Assault" look, while at the same time sticking to something broadly historical.  in the end I went for a very dark, almost rifle green.  The facings and puggaree (cloth wrapped around the helmet) I painted Sand, to reference the real-life regiment's distinctive beret colour.  Finally, rather than arming them with regular rifles, or the Automatic Rifles that Black Pyramid also do, I went with their Aether Weapons pack.  In the setting, they are armed with Bolt Rifles, very large caliber weapons firing explosive shells.  (Yes, shades of Games Workshop Space Marines, I know. And that's not altogether a bad thing).  This makes them quite capable at taking out armoured vehicles if required.

I've already documented the frustrating process of assembling these chaps, but once done they're pleasantly beefy, just a little chunkier than the Ironclad figures.  For the unit's officer I decided to use the standard bearer figure, let's face it, all the Rupert has to do is stand there and look pretty while the rest of the lads get on and do the job.  The standard uses the fanciful "Black Ops" unit insignia that's floating around on the internet, with the motto reading "If I told you, I'd have to kill you." in Latin.  It's so dark as to normally be indistinguishable to the naked eye (the flash brings it out, along with the white edging on the flag which isn't so obvious normally - time to dig out the black marker pen and edge it properly)
Assembled and painted, these chaps look superbly menacing, and make me want to produce a couple of units of gasmasked redcoats as shock troops for when I'm in a more Dystopian mood, or as antagonists in an upcoming "Very Victorian Civil War"

So I've been looking at several sets of rules as possible options for a larger scale game than GASLIGHT is suited to.  The short list is as follows.

• The Sword and The Flame
• Space 1889 Soldier's Companion
• FUBAR (with the VSF expansion)
• Colonial Adventures, with elements of NUTS!, both from 2 hour Wargames
• With MacDuff to the Frontier

Keen eyed readers will notice that not all of those rulesets are VSF games.

Larry Brom's "The Sword and the Flame" is one of the top historical Colonial games, but I certainly wouldn't be the first gamer to adapt it to VSF.  In fact Terry Sofian recently published a supplement "The Hive and the Flame" for fighting battles in his "For Hive Queen and Country." setting.

Soldier's Companion is at heart a solid set of 19th century/colonial wargame rules, with the fantastic conveyances of the Space 1889 universe bolted on. I've played quite a few straight historical battles with these rules, and quite a few of Sky Galleons of Mars (airships) and Ironclads and Etherflyers (the naval wargame) but never SC with any sort of VSF elements.  It does have a fairly strict but robust vehicle design system, which means that some more fanciful vehicles might not be possible to recreate (like the Springenpanzer, or the one-man tank mounting the 6" Naval gun) without some heavy handwaving.

FUBAR is a free one-page set of rules designed for fast-play science fiction battles, but it does have a VSF supplement which adds quite a bit of steampunk flavour.  Players must roll to activate units, succeed and they may then try to activate another unit, fail and initiative passes to the other player.  Initiative flip flops this way until all units have moved or attempted activation.

I've long been a massive fan of Ed Teixeira's Two Hour Wargames for his skirmish games, and am quite fond of Rally Round the King for large but fast-play fantasy/medieval battles.  Colonial Adventures is his entry into the colonial market and seems designed for similar games to TSATF and Soldier's Companion.  NUTS! is his WWII game, and has what looks like a solid vehicular combat system which ought to work as well for steam tanks as more modern vehicles.  It also has a Weird War II supplement, which might be useful for introducing VSF elements into the game. All 2Hr Wargames are built on broadly similar principles, so it should certainly be possible to graft elements of NUTS! onto Colonial Adventures to handle the VSF elements of the game.

Last but by no means least, for as long as I've been on the internet, MacDuff has been heading for that Frontier, inviting any who wish to tag along with him.  Canadian wargamer Ross Macfarlane, (who has been known to drop by the old Axis of Naughtiness occasionally) used to use an earlier version of the rules to fight spectactular battles with 54mm figures.  Nowadays his blog Battle Game of the Month is full of truly inspirational games often featuring mid-19th century 40mm toy soldiers.  When veteran gamers usually play their own, self-written rules that they're constantly tinkering with in the hope of getting it "right", it's usually a warning sign that the rules are going to be lengthy, baroque, painfully detailed and rather lacking in the fun department*.

So when I at last settled down to read MacDuff, I was pleasantly surprised to find what looks like a solid, simple, playable set of rules, with just enough detail to get by and a couple of innovative ideas clearly implemented.  There's just the barest hint of a reference to VSF elements, enough to get going with at least.  Of all the rulesets above this is one that I'm most keen to try out.

I'm thinking that rather than throwing myself back into the figure painting, next week I ought to lay out some terrain for one of Grant's scenarios/Table Top Teasers and refight it using each of the above rulesets to see how they feel.

(*I am obliged to point out that Brother Cordery's Portable Wargames et al are also pleasant exceptions to this rule.)

Heavy Metal Thunder

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away.... you may remember me talking about picking up a couple of GW Leman Russ tank models at Britcon in Manchester which would have been...what back in August of last year. The intention was to return those retro-sci-fi tanks back to their roots and convert them into steam tanks/landhips

The boys are back in town!

Now, nearly six months later, it is my great pleasure to unveil the first two units of the King Henry-class landships, HMLS King Henry and HMLS Lionheart.

These were both picked up at the Britcon bring & buy for the grand sum of £5 each.  King Henry (with the mudguards) was painted in a dazzle arctic camoflage and absolutely smothered in stowage, machine guns and 1/48 crew figures.  The other sported a more modest grey paintjo

Both vehicles were placed in a bath of Dettol to strip the paint awy and the main turrets removed and discarded.  The side and front weapon sponsons were also removed and disassembled, with the original weapons discarded.  One of the side guns was so firmly glued in that I wound up damaging the top armour by removiung it, and despite taking extra care I managed to lose one of the sponson pieces and had to carve a replacement out of plasticard.

Front Towards Enemy

 After a few months kicking around my project table, re-assembly begun.  I scratchbuilt some simple Gatling-type machine guns for all the sponsons and re-fitted them.  Holes caused by removal damage and the replacement piece were patched and filled with green stuff.  I replaced the angular Leman Russ turret with the Scrap Tank turret from Ramshackle Games' "Tridlins" range, which was just larger than the existing turret ring hole.  A 25mm round slottabase was glued to the underside of the turret, which fit inside the turret ring hole and helps hold the turret in position while allowing it to freely rotate.

Baby got back!

You can't have a steam tank without steam, so to help break up the familiar lines of the Leman Russ I added a boiler and smokestack to the rear of the tank, from the Heavy Landship Boiler add-on from Black Pyramid Gaming.  Their range also includes some Aether weapons which would have been another option for the sponson guns.

Both the turret and the boiler cost £3.50 each, so at this point we have a heavy landship model with a material price-tag of £12.  Not bad when it's double the size of a similarly priced model from Ironclad Miniatures!
The models were spray-primed black using Krylon Fusion Camoflage paint, which is apparently designed to adhere to plastics.  I then gave both tanks a white basecoat using my new airbrush - its first test (as mentioned a few posts back) The result was an imperfect, slightly blotchy coating which was just the effect I wanted.  The tracks were painted black and drybrushed silver, and after picking out a few other details in colours, it was onto the decals.

I picked up some laser printer decal paper last year and had used it with some success on the vehicles for the Big Birthday Bash game, but after watching a video by the guy from Gruntz 15mm I had a new trick to
try.  Micro-Set and Micro-Sol are two components of a single system designed to improve the appearance of decals.  Before the decal is placed, the surface is painted with Micro-Set, then after it has been placed and dried at least partly, the decal is then overpainted with Micro-Sol.  Both products are designed to soften and thin the decal material, allowing it to conform better to any irregularities on the surface and giving the decal more of a painted-on look rather than stuck-on.

Well I don't know how the products work or what-does-what, but the overall result is good.  After several coats of Micro-Sol, the edges of the decal start to disappear and blend seamlessly with the surface of the model, and the only tell-tale is that the decal surface is glossier than the matt paint below, something easily fixed with a quick spray of matt varnish/Army Painter "Anti-Shine".  The extra effort was well worth it as it just kicks the decals appearance up another notch.

Once the decals were finished and thinned, I gave the tanks a thin black wash to pick out some of the detailing on the models, and also dirty them up a little bit.  I finished with a very light silver dry-brush over all the painted bodywork, just enough to pick out the raised details a little.  I was originally going to do a bit more weathering with the airbrush, but since I'm still not used to using that, and I'm happy with how the Landships look without it, I'm ready to call these boys done.

I've heard some people argue that GW vehicles are so distinctive that it's difficult to convert them for use as something else.  A 40K fan might still recognise where the main hull has come from, but since its original design borrowed so heavily from those early WWI/interwar tanks, personally I think the added resin parts and scratbuilt guns change the lines of the Leman Russ enough that it doesn't look out place on a Victorian/Edwardian battlefield.

The King Henry-class landships will be among the new vehicles making their debuts at what I'm calling the "March Madness Melee", which is the game we'll be doing at Manchester Area Wargames Society on Sunday 4th March.

Lazybones, sittin' in the sun

Day 5 of DO-WOP/WAMP turned into a complete bust for me.  The Motivation Fairy failed to call, and in her place the Apathy Fairy stomped my good intentions into the ground.  Short of spray-varnishing those rough terrain markers, I didn't do a darned thing, gamingwise on Friday.

As a motivational exercise, the week has been a mixed success. It did get me a little further with my paint queue, and got me to finish a half-started project.  But the requirement to have something concrete at the end of the day may have been self defeating, as it put me off trying anything that was going to take more than one day's work to complete (through drying times or sheer amount of effort involved, like painting a whole unit of ten figures, or making some new road junctions.)  With hindsight, there are a couple of other half-finished projects on my shelves that  I could have dug out

I think for getting stuff done, nothing beats the motivation from a very real deadline, such as a scheduled game.  But an exercise like DO-WOP or WAMP is well worth trying as a second-best option.  Thanks to myincubliss for the idea.

Ironically I've done quite a bit today.  Starting with the Black Pyramid Heavy Landship...

She's been primed and sitting on my shelf for weeks, and it's only taken an hour or so to get her to a state where she wouldn't look out of place on the wargame table (though I'm toying with the idea of giving her a black wash to try to pick out the detailing a little more).  Note that this pic shows one slight flaw with the casting, the rear of the left tread isn't sitting quite flush with the body leaving a slight gap.  I hadn't noticed this until seeing this photograph and on the tabletop looking down at wargames distances it's impossible to spot, so I'm going to let it slide.  For perfectionists, it would only take a few minutes doing a better job of sanding down and/or filling the gap with putty, so I wouldn't let it put you off this rather nice model.  This particular model has wing sponson guns and a fuel bin added from Black Pyramid's add-ons selection.

The only thing left to do is knock up some decals and come up with a name for this wee beastie.  My current  German landships are all named after Wagner operas, (Siegfried, Parsifal and Lohengrin) so maybe this should be the "Gotterdammerung"?

I also made significant progress on four other vehicles in the "Evil Genius" queue, including the converted Brass Coffin from Ramshackle Games.  It's looking pretty good and should be finished sometime next week with a bit of luck.

But we've got such a long way to go

Queen Una of Novembre consulted with the captain of her elite Crimson Guard "So you're saying we're lost."


The Guard Captain's cheeks bore the regimental colours "Erm yes, your majesty."


"In my own kingdom.  At the head of my own army.  Tell me Captain, how are we supposed to put that outrageous buffoon Trente in his place is we are unable to navigate from one of our cities to the next?  While we blindly bimble around the forests of Mandua, the reverend traitor could already be preaching sedition from the palace steps in the capital!"


The Captain momentarily considered trying to enlighten his monarch of the difficulties involved in mobilising a large body of men and horses from across a quarter of the kingdom.  The Royal Host had assembled expeditiously, but with no immediate enemy to fight had begun to fray visibly at the edges.  When the decision was made to relocate the Host to Mandua, it quickly degenerated to the point of becoming little more than a disorganised rabble.


On further reflection, the Captain decided that the queen was probably not in the mood for a lesson in the arts of war.


"Majesty, we have reports back from the scouts.  They say that this road we are on leads to the main Royal Highway to Mandua.  Once we pass through yonder forest ahead, our journey will be all but over."


"We hope your trust in these scouts is justly rewarded." the Queen retorted.  "If not, we shall see about dishing out some just rewards of our own."


The scouts were in fact correct about the forest ahead.  What they missed, in their excitement to return with this good news, was the small but not insignificant band of armed men waiting in the nearby hollow.  Baron Primestowe, pious supporter of the Church of the Nine and keen huntsman, had set out in search of Royal Game.  His small force would ordinarily be no match for the Royal Host.  But with the Host disordered and scattered along the road and the Baron's forces positioned to cut off its line of march, things weren't quite so clear cut.


There you have the setup for the Week 1 Southern battle in the Novembre Civil War.  It's based on scenario 22 "Making the Best of a Bad Job" from "Scenarios for All Ages".  In it the "Blue" (i.e. Royalist) forces are split "evenly" between three bodies of troops scattered along the road.  I intend to do this randomly, which means the Royalists will struggle to put together organised bodies of similar troops.  This greatly offsets the 16 unit to 10 advantage they have over the Baron.  It's going to be very interesting.

So although I haven't had time to fight the battle, the table is all setup for it to be played tomorrow night.   If I then manage the first two battles of Week 2 on Saturday and next Monday, that will only leave me one game behind schedule.

So with my day job now effectively being as a full time carer for my parents, days can vary from being frantically busy, to being long periods "on standby" inbetween preparing meals and medication and any other minor chores.  Fortunately things are settling down at the moment into the latter state of affairs, so I've been able to tidy up and re-organise the little corner that I've appropriated as a painting station.  In the process, the Black Pyramid Tea Wars figures have jumped the painting queue and today I primed them and started painting them, completing the Officer, the Sniper and one Trooper.  They were pleasantly easy to paint, with easy to pick out straps and packs.  The plan, as I've mentioned previously, was to present them as a "Victorian SAS" based on the iconic images from the end of the Iranian Embassy Siege.  Army Painter "Angel Green" has provided the base colour, then black for the boots, belts, gasmasks and guns.  Flesh for the hands (I toyed with the idea of giving them black gloves, but a little skin looks better I think) Sand for the facings (collars and cuffs and puggeree - to reflect the SAS's signature sand coloured berets), gold for the helmet spike and some detailing on the gun and silver dots for the gasmask eyeholes and drybrushed over the gun.  That's it, just five colours painted over the basecoat (six if you count a bit of Thalo Green for tidying up mistakes)  The paint job is so simple to do I should easily be able to get the rest of the ten man unit completed and Quickshaded by the end of tomorrow.

Until now I'd shied away from any gasmasked figures in my VSF collection.  I know it's a valid part of the steampunk "look", coming from the gothy end of the scene.  But it never really fit into my personal vision of Victorian Science Fiction, which is more of a "Boys Own Adventure" sort of thing.  Bring in gasmasks and you sort of imply the use of poison gas on the battlefield.  That may be a legitimate element too, as it had been proposed several times throughout the nineteenth century, and there's at least one report I've read of the British deploying poison gas in the Maori wars, with little effect.  But gas for me is like having too many machine guns - it brings in the baggage of WWI and a very un-splendid tone to the procedings.

But working on these Special Aether Service figures really brought home how adding a gasmask to  the familiar figure of the British soldier turns him from being good old Tommy Atkins to a faceless stormtrooper of a dystopian empire.  If I was playing a more anti-establishment VSF setting, say heroic airship pirates against the class system,  gasmasked tommies would make excellent bad guys.  If I ever pursue the "Very Victorian Civil War" idea further, I'll definitely want to be picking up some more Tea Wars figures with gasmask heads as troops loyal to one of the less savoury factions.

Also while doing a bit of research as inspiration for these Victorian SAS I stumbled across another uniform option for Home Service British figures.  Volunteer regiments. including the Artists' Rifles (who would later be reformed as the start of the post-war SAS) wore a natty grey uniform, another candidate for a super-fast Army Painter job.  So that's another option to add to the list, along with Riflemen in green, of ways to make British units distinct from eachother.

Finally I'm going to make an extra effort this week to get some more steam tanks done and ready for the next GASLIGHT game.  I have an ever-growing backlog of vehicles in varying states of completion and yet we wind up using the same old vehicles for every game.  The "Prussian Armoured Pullman" from Scheltrum is about 50% painted, a couple more coats, some neatening up and detailing and it'll be ready.  The two new Black Pyramid landships are also headed for German service, while the Armored Traction Engine (with extra bits from Ramshackle) will join the Fenians along with two "American" steam wagons from Scheltrum - though those can wait until I have sufficient Fenian infantry painted.  This means the two GW Leman Russ tanks will eventually go to the British.

But that's a lot of resin and plastic and as I've found, the best way to get things done is to get something done, anything, each day.  As long as you make some progress each day, eventually you'll get to your objective.  So as long as I can get the Armoured Pullman ready by the end of the week, along with the SAS a few more individual figures, then I'll be happy.

My Tank! Has Armour Plate. To save me from hate.

With epic room clearing task finished and the Elder Vesuvius packed off to his weekly hospital visit, I was able to sit down today and finally take a proper look at the Black Pyramid resin landships that you may recall were previewed at Britcon a couple of months back. Well as soon as they became available about two weeks ago I ordered all three models. The add-on kits that were also demoed at Britcon aren't available yet, but hopefully will be soon. What I didn't realise when I placed my order was that Black Pyramid have a special offer on at t he moment - for every landship ordered between now and December 31 will receive a free pack of Tea Wars miniatures. BP kindly pointed this out and asked which figures I'd be wanting, so I asked for a couple of packs of Aether gunners and the Command pack. More on them later.

The first thing you notice is that for your £17.50 you get a big chunk of resin. All three models are roughly the same size, despite two being dubbed "medium" and a "heavy" landships. But cunningly the hulls of these two landships are hollow shells, so the vehicle is a lot lighter than you'd expect given the size. The moulding is very crisp, and of the three vehicles only the Heavy Landship required significant sanding to level off the bottom of the vehicle

Without the extra add-ons that were shown on the Britcon preview vehicles, these three come out quite plain looking, leaving me wanting to dive into the Ramshackle tridlins box to "finish them off". The two landships are boxy and slab-sided, and the heavy version really does need a pain of wing sponsons on either side to make it really rock out. The amoured traction engine is, in its default configuration unarmed, making its use on the battlefield limited. I've armed mine with a couple of spare mortars from Ramshackle's Scrap Tank turret pack, mounted sideways like sponsons.

The one piece missing from all three models is a small but vital one. None of them come with any sort of smokestack. Anyone who's ever kitbashed a steamtank from another vehicle knows that the smokestack is what says "Hey, this is a steam powered contraption" and is the first thing you consider adding. Missing out the smokestacks from the basic models and including them in the add-ons is like selling a car (steering wheel not included)

But apart from that these are three good, solid, plausible steam conveyances. With their slab sides and lots of flat surfaces, they make a good starting point for further customisation. It takes some lovin' from the bitz box, or BP's own add-on packs to really make them sing. Worth £17.50? Weill they're a similar size to the Scheltrum Armoured Pullman, which is the same price. Ironclad's models work out a few quid cheaper for a vehicle with similar overall dimensions, but don't quite match the chunkiness of these models. Overall I'd say these are well worth it, provided you consider the need for customisation to be an opportunity rather than a flaw.

As mentioned earlier, Black Pyramid's special offer meant that I received three free packs of figures with these steamtanks. The regular infantry are multi-part figures - head, torso, legs and weapon being separate, and come with plenty of spare heads and weapons. The command pack comes with one complete figure (wrapped in some sort of weird science electrical gear, so I'm guessing he's some sort of communications operator), and a standard bearer and officer with separate heads. Since the default Black Pyramid "Tea Wars" infantry comes with a tropical-service pith helmet, they're of limited use to me and my strictly home-service collection, so I'm going with the idea I mentioned previously and using BPs spiked helmets with gasmasks to turn these Aether weapon gunners into a small elite Special Aether Service unit.

Finally it's with mixed feelings that I read that Black Pyramid have now acquired the Steam & Steel range of figures from Design28. While I'm sure BP will be a good home for the range, it's sad to think that the range isn't going to be expanded, as the sculptor for Design28 had some really nice, quirky ideas. Since I'm currently on a quest to boost the number of steampunky adventurer figures I have (rather than historical soldiers or civilians) I'm looking forward to when they'll be available again.

My Tank, My Tank is Fight!

As a brief interlude before I start playing the tutorial game, today I've been mostly attending Britcon, with Jonesy (Mi Hermano del Conductor), Marvin and Tony (another gaming friend). Despite being based in my home city, I've never attended it before, for the simple reason that it's primarily a competitive wargaming tournament with a small trade-show element tacked on. I don't get competitive wargaming, it just goes against everything I find fun in the hobby and has so much potential to lead to unpleasantness.

Nevertheless, Marvin was back in town again and mentioned wanting to go. Jonesy was initially against, but when he mentioned how most of the attendees would be wrapped up in their competitions, so that even the Bring and Buy would be mostly deserted, I leapt at the chance.

The bring and buy didn't disappoint, as for the first time in many years of attending wargames conventions I found myself able to reach the table without fighting through a scrum of unwashed wargamers. I was easily able to find my bargain of the day - two GW Leman Russ tanks ripe for steampunk conversion, for only £5 each. One has been extensively modified with extra "bitz" and a hideous arctic camo scheme, but I'm afraid both are going to be hacked mercilessly and Victorianised for GASLIGHT. I also picked up a copy of Buck's and Chris's "Look Sarge, No Charts - WW2" as a gift for Jonesy (who is coming down off a major Flames Of War addiction) as thank-you for driving.

Apart from the tournament games, the trade section was indeed very small, less than half the number of traders than, say Phalanx from earlier in the year (and positively tiny compared to US cons). I picked up a few Wargames Foundry blisters from their new Victoriana range. But best of all I did get a chance to chat with the chaps from Black Pyramid games, who produce a small but growing range of VSF figures under the "Tea Wars" brand. They had pre-production samples of their upcoming steam-tank range.

Phil from Black Pyramid explained to me the range is going to be rather modular, so you can buy a basic vehicle and then buy expansions and modifications for it. The samples they had were basically upgraded with every add-on part they had to showcase the full extent of the possibilities. This wheeled tractor, for example, has been designed with a reversible main hull. You can turn it upside down, fit tracks or wheels to the long flat bottom edge and you've got a vehicle with a completely different look.

These are large beasties, I'd say about half again or maybe even double the size of the Ironclad steam tanks. Another of the Black Pyramiders (whose name I've forgotten but I think may have been Dave) told me this was a deliberate design choice, in order to make them distinctive. They didn't have confirmed prices yet, but were looking at around the £18-20 mark, which seems entirely reasonable for the weight of resin you're getting - comparable to the Scheltrum landships for example.

We talked a bit more about how useful the expansion packs are going to be to scratchbuilders - I know I'm already mentally ordering a half dozen of those gun sponsons. They're hoping the first of the tanks and expansions will be available sometime in September in time for the Stoke Challenge wargaming show which they're co-sponsoring.

They also produce a range of VSF British in colonial pith-helmets, and a very useful selection of loose weapons and heads. While picking up a few packs of Martini-Henrys I asked again about the obvious gap in their heads offering - while they do pith helmets with or without goggles and Home Service helmets with gasmasks, they don't yet do Home Service helmets with normal heads (without gasmasks). This, they told me, was definitely near the top of their to-do list.

All in all, Black Pyramid were a fine bunch of chaps (and one fetching chapette) who seemed genuinely interested in what potential customers were looking for, and were very kind in allowing me to disrupt their display in order to get these photos. I'm really looking forward to when these steam tanks become available, and if they get the Home Service Helmets sculpted I could definitely see myself picking up a few to convert various figures for the defence of fair Albion.

(Although as I typed this an idea popped into my head. Tea Wars automatic riflemen + Home Service Gasmask heads = Victorian-era Special Airship Service shock-troops.)