Painting and Other Miscellany

Not much gaming or posting this month. I worked at a local convention and brought a few Paperboys sheets:

And finished off the LDV bases with some Stirland Mud:

Re: Paperboys, I've had little interest in the Portable Wargame during Chess Club, but a couple players suggested that the figures would make good chessmen. I've been thinking for a while, but so far I haven't worked out what all the pieces would be. Pawns, Kings and Knights are easy enough. Elephants or war engines would work as Rooks, as these were the original name for the piece. The Bishop can be taken from one of the medieval sets with monks. The Queen is the real problem, as (Paperboys focusing on wargaming pieces) there are few women. I could use Boudicca, for example, from the Romans-and-Britons volume, but then there are no Roman women, and while the Britons have druids for the Bishop, there's no corresponding figure for the Romans. While for the Rook, the Romans have both elephants and war engines, but the Britons have neither.

Best for the purpose might be the clearly differentiated Little Wars figures, in blue and red. Still need a queen, though it might be possible to modify the civilian women a bit - someone has already done it to make suffragettes. There is one with a huge flowery hat, just the sort of Ascot wear you might expect of an 1890s upper-class woman. I've looked up French first ladies of the period, and they wore the same hats, so I could use the same figure (or head, anyway).

After a little experimentation, I also suspect I'll need to modify the size of different pieces. The size of chessmen is an important element of any set, with the pawns half the size of the pieces. A knight at the same scale as "infantry" bishop, rook, king and queen would also tower over them. I'm thinking 28mm Pawns and Knights, with the others in 54mm.

Finally, heavier bases would be useful. I've been using old business cards, which works very well for smaller figures. I would prefer thick "grey card," the sort at the back of notepads, but am not sure where to find it.

Finally, I've started painting my Warhammer 40K 8th Edition starter set:

Tricky to undercoat in blue when they're already blue...

Though in the circumstances under which I'm likeliest to play with them, leaving them bare might actually be preferable, as they seem more like "playing pieces" than complex models this way. So I'm undecided.

And that's what I'm on about this month. Other than reading, of course. Have got thru four Leaphorn/Chee novels and one and a half Poul Anderson fantasies so far. See you next time,