New Books

Took a long weekend down in Melbourne and a friend recommended checking out a bookstore called Hylands.

Boy was I in for a shock!

This has got to be the best military bookstore in Australia. Fantastic!

So many awesome books I had trouble choosing. But in the end I purchased:

 

6mm Baccus Boer Wars and Crusades arrived today

Fantastic!

Opened the box up hungrily and checked them out. Nice little 6mm Boers and Colonial Brits, European Knights and foot and Muslim fighters. All look really good. Will they be better than the 10mm troops I have to compare with? Not sure yet. I need to paint up some samples of each.

Stay tuned for that!

10mm Boer's Order Arrived

My order of 10mm Boer War figures has arrived from Pendraken. Great Service!

Here's a couple of pics of them before they are cleaned up and undercoated for painting:

A few hours of cleaning off flash and flattening the bases and a few pics of the Brits and allies:

Imperial Brit and Colonial Mounted

Imperial Brit Infantry

Colonial Bushmen Infantry

British Artillery and Crew

British Artillery Crew

 

British, Colonial and Boer Prone Shooters

Boer Mounted

Boer Infantry - not sure what the guy on his hands and knees is doing?

Boer Artillery and Crew

I feel like I may have actually made up my mind to go 10mm for Boer Wars but I really need to check the 6mm stuff as well so they will be posted up next.

The Boer Wars Have Bitten

I have always been the strong advocate of picking a limited number of projects as a wargamer to be your focus. I use this idea because of a number of reasons - limited lifespan, limited money, limited space, limited time.

For me, I chose 6mm Napoleonics as my #1 project to spend my precious time and money on. Followed closely by Moderns in 20mm and more recently 6mm. To this I added 6mm ACW and 6mm Sci Fi and of course I needed to devote time and money and effort to terrain for these projects as well. I had always wanted to do the 3rd Crusades and so this year I added 10mm Crusades to the list as the 6mm figures left a lot to be desired.

So there I was. All sorted. It meant I could avoid all those lovely books on other periods and skip over those tantalizing articles in magazines and on websites knowing comfortably I could do so without temptation to dabble in distracting periods or scales.

Then I bought a local history of a fellow's grandfather's exploits during The 2nd Boer War and then World War I culminating in the Australian Light Horse's famous charge and capture of Beersheba.

I had always had the Boer War bug but kept it in check by following my exclusive projects rules. This book however has lit something inside of me. I already have arid terrain in 6mm to use. And the scale of the units are smaller and therefore cheaper to purchase and put together. For rules I thought I would use a modification for Force on Force.

So onto the web I went. 6mm is always my 1st choice of scale due to the terrain I already have to use, the space I have available - both for play and storage and the cheap price for figures especially when you are a megalomaniac such as I who loves to field both sides of periods and at a scale to visually inspire both myself and others along the way. I like to put 1000s of figures on the tabletop.

Recently I had expanded my projects to include the 3rd Crusade and found it difficult to find good 6mm figures that I could paint up nicely to show the colour of that period so I had compromised and "allowed" myself to purchase 10mm figures for this project. So for the Boer Wars I went looking for 6mm knowing I may again have to settle on 10mm. I was surprised to find Baccus has some good looking figures in 6mm for Boer War and so I made a purchase of a few to test them out. While I was there I found they also produce a range of Crusades figures, so I purchased those as well. Not to be dissuaded from 10mm, I also went and found a range of Boer War figures from 10mm producer Pendraken and purchased some of them. So I now have sample lots of 6mm Crusades and Boer Wars and 10mm Crusades and Boer Wars heading to my painting table.

I will keep posting under a new label on my progress through deciding 6mm or 10mm for the Boer Wars project. Stay tuned!