Cangames Prep - Taking Stock

So starting to get organized for the games I have signed up to run at Cangames 2015, and figure out what needs to get done to pull off what I want. I have submitted two games as follows:

Battle on the Ice - a 28mm game based on the Teutonic Knights retreating from their loss at Lake Peipus, basically as an excuse to make it a skirmish game. Using the historical adaption of the Games Workshop Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game. This one is on the Friday at 2.

Samurai Battles: Mikatagahara - a 15mm game based on the battle as named, using the Pike and Shotte Samurai adaption. This one is based a bit more on how things actually went down, but I think I will be making the sides a bit more even.

Battle on the Ice:

The first game requires the most work I would say, I have the Teutonic Knights I took to Cold Wars, but I would also like to add in a few Knights of the Livonian Order. Then I have to paint the Rus to fight them, I picked up a box of Pagan Rus and Rus Princes at Cold Wars so that will basically give me the opposition just need to get it all painted.

I have gotten started on that, all of the Vajarzi are primed and based along with the Warlord, and I even have 4 basically finished except for the shields, had to order some decals. So making pretty good progress on that one. I bought the Osprey book about this battle so I do have some back ground to base things on, but I am mostly just doing whatever I want to make a cool battle if I am honest.

Paints Used for Varjazi: (kind of an excessive amount of paints but never mind)

Foundry:
Flesh Shade, Flesh, Flesh Light

GW:
Leadbelcher, Dwarf Bronze, Mithril Silver, Kantor Blue, Khorne Red, Wazdaka Red, Asurman Blue

Liquitex:
Black Gesso, Black Ink

Army Painter:
Soft Tone, Electric Blue, Tunic Green

Vallejo:
Reflective Green, Choclate Brown, Deck Tan, Dark Sand, White, Black, Ivory, Dark Grey, Wood Grain, Orange Brown, Flat EArth, Neutral Grey, German Camo Beige, Smoke, Japanese Uniform


Samurai Battles: Mikatagahara:

For the Samurai game I actually have allot of stuff painted, the challenge is more on getting all the rebasing I want to do done. I have another half a dozen units done for that.

Bunch of Samurai this time. I was hoping to included more Ashigaru as retainers in the foot Samurai units as they had a second rank of retainers supporting them. But the museum miniatures ones I had for this lot are a bit big so it's hard to fit them in. Still I think the new basing system looks good and is a bit more realistic I hope. This brings me up to 12 units done for the Kenshin force which I am using as stand ins for the Tokugawa forces. I have another 4 units plus 2 commanders almost done as well. So I don't think I will have problems with this project. 18 is my current goal for the rough nuymber of units each side, and I already have a nice set of terrain ready to go.

I actually have a good scenario for this from the Killer Katanas book, which includes troop numbers. So I made a spreadsheet to give me an idea of the ideal mix of bases.

Here is a shot of that sheet so you can see what I am heading for roughly:

As you can see the Tokugawa were in fact out numbered by almost 3:1. Right now I am starting with it as balanced, but I plan to do some play testing later on when more stuff is ready, so I can adjust it towards a more realistic scenario. This is a 6 player game also, so I am planning to give each players a secret sub plot objective card. So your fellow Samurai may or may not be as loyal as you think/hope!

This will be the biggest game I ever put off alone so requires the most work.

Be sure to let me know what you are thinking about these games in the comments!
Duncan will do another Force on Force game. Maybe I will also finally be tempted to try out a demo of the Batman Miniatures game which is becoming popular who knows.

Infinity:

As a bonus for this post I also finished painting another Infinity miniatures for last Friday evenings games. This one is the free miniature that came with the new Infinity how to paint book, Joan of Arc.

Pretty happy with how this one came out, but obviouly it doesn't look super great in a zoomed in picture. I didn't keep a close record of the paints I used but it's the same blue blacks and white method that I have been using lately, so pretty similar to the Varjazi above oddly enough.

This trooper worked out great in game turns, she has excellent command abilities and is good all around. Plus you can get into fun bad ass sword fights which everyone enjoys surely.

Here is a shot of it laying some pain on an Aleph troop that was trying to break into a supply building at the end of my last game!

Totally different from the historical stuff above, but I really like to keep the variety going, and it is good to hang out with different groups some times. Interestingly the historical players and sci fi / fantasy guys don't seem to respect each other that much which I find curious since they seem so similar to me.

Pledge Status 2015:
Bought: 121 (Rus, Templar Foot, Infinity Set)
Painted: 41 (Few add in for Samurai bases)
Total: -80

So as expected big hit to the numbers, but I have a ton of stuff to paint in the next couple of months!

Thanks;
Mike

P.S. Apologies for the spelling mistakes I am sure there are tons!