Is history important?

No matter how entertaining I find history, I wrestle with the idea that I should find history important.

I enjoy history as a pursuit, as an entertainment. I love reading historical books, researching my armies, watching historical movies etc etc. I love revelling in former times, which always feel much more exciting times to live (though much more uncomfortable too!).

But do I find history important?  No.  Knowing the exact truth of minor details of history won’t have any effect on today’s lives, unlike  other subjects such as medicine and science, where the difference between getting it exactly right and wrong can have huge impacts.

Some might say that the knowledge of history is important to shape and engage people of today.  I think that is true in a sense.  But it isn’t the knowledge of the exact details of history that shape and engage people – it is the myths passed down mouth-to-mouth and though TV, movies, novels, popular books and so on.

I contend that people’s views on, say, the Napoleonic Wars, are shaped by the myths passed down, and any effect that knowledge of the Napoleonic Wars has on modern life is based on those myths, not on the exact truth of details.  In other words, ‘Story’ has much more effect than ‘Hi-Story’.

So knowing exactly when Prussian General Zeiten sent a message to the Duke of Wellington  before the Battle of Waterloo, or who invented the artillery bricole  (both subjects of ongoing acrimonious debates between some military historians) are not important.  Knowing one way or the other won’t change the lives of me or anyone else on this planet. All they are is … interesting.

Yes, the historian’s job might be to find the truth (if they can!).  But I think that is no more important to humanity than a novelist writing a fiction book.  It is still fun, colourful, adds dimension to our lives etc – but it is not important.

This ethos of mine to the importance of history  transfers into my ethos to historical wargaming:  fun, period flavour, storyline, romance, colour, atmosphere, happily based on myth – but let’s not get too hooked on detail!

Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Men

I’m begging you to vote for my son’s entry in a competition on our national news website to design a costume to wear at the forthcoming Rugby Sevens tournament in Wellington!

Oli and his mates designed and sewed costumes depicting Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Men from the TV cartoon ‘Family Guy’.

Go here to vote:  http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/sport/sevens-2012/sevens-2012-poll/6178176/Sevens-2012-Poll

Just so you know how good Oli’s costume is, here is the source snippet from the ‘Family Guy’ TV programme:

Thanks for voting for my son!

PS: A wargames army of Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Men would be pretty colourful, aye!

‘Colonial New Zealand Wars’ book seeking good home

Over the weekend I bought a first edition Colonial New Zealand Wars book in an online auction at a very reasonable price.   I actually already own a copy of this book,  so I bought it purely to pass it on at cost to another enthusiast for the period, as I know it is usually quite hard to find at a reasonable price.

This is the classic book by Tim Ryan and Bill Parham that contains all the information that any wargamer would ever want  about the history, units and uniforms of the 19th century wars in New Zealand.

Please note that this is the first edition, which doesn’t contain the colour photos of reenactors that only appeared in the second edition.  But nevertheless it is an important source for gamers of this period.

I haven’t yet received the book from the seller, but it is said to be in good condition.

So, if you are interested to buy this book off me, please comment on this posting.  The cost of the book will be what I paid for it (only $NZ25!!!), plus any postage to get it to you.

Rather than making it first come, first serve (which I think is unfair to those on the wrong side of the time zone!), in a couple of days I’ll do a draw of those who have indicated in the comments to this posting that they are interested.

Toying with ‘toi-tois’

A Māori warrior brandishes his weapon from a grove of toitoi bushes. This is another progress shot of my work on my New Zealand plant terrain.  I think that it is starting to really get the look of the New Zealand bush that I’m after.

I painted and assembled the toitois tonight, with their distinctive feathery heads. I also put together half a dozen flax bushes – you can just see their brown branchy type shoots (or whatever they’re botanically called!!!) in the mid-distance, along with some of the ferns I made last night.

Tomorrow I’ll work on more of the cabbage tree kits.  There’s one in the background of this photo, but I think it needs a bit more work on the dead leaves.

At the moment all these plants are not yet based – I just placed them into a shallow box to take this photo.

YouTube on making New Zealand trees

Here is a YouTube clip from Graeme, the maker of the New Zealand plant kits:

I was fascinated to see his laser cutter in action.  But, more importantly, the video shows how you roll the leaves.  I should’ve watched this before I assembled the plants in my last posting!

Pictures of a New Zealand Wars scene with my plants

Here’s some photos of my first experiments with the New Zealand tree kits I mentioned in my previous posting.  Posed with the Perry farmhouse and an Empress civilian, I think the scene looks very … well … New Zealandish!

So far I’ve only assembled the kits of the ferns (mainly on the left of picture).  I started by painting the fronds with acrylic paints, as I felt the paper they were made out of was too bright a green.  I also drew in dark stems underneath each frond – but later realised this was a mistake as it was hard to keep these on the under-surface when assembling the plants.

Assembly of the ferns was fiddly at first, but improved as I worked through the plants.  It is a matter of rolling a strip of paper fronds around a toothpick, glueing as you go, then teasing out the fronds afterwards.  I’m quite happy with the final rather messy – but natural – arrangement of the fronds.

I haven’t assembled any of the other kits yet, but did already have on hand one pre-assembled sample of each type of plant from my first order.  I tried painting these too, but found this was very tricky on assembled plants because the leaves began clumping together and drooping.  I think I have ended up ruining the tree ferns (vaguely visible  in the pics behind the house) , but no matter – next time I’ll do them as kits so I can paint the leaves first.   I think the trick is to paint the leaves lying flat before any assembly takes place.

I am particularly happy with the cabbage tree, flax and toitoi (right side of picture), even though they were painted after assembly.  On the pre-assembled cabbage tree, I merely painted the join between the rolls of dead and green leaves to make it a little less obvious.  The pre-assembled flax and toitoi have just had some dry-brushing of other shades of green to add a bit of depth to the colour.  But when I put together these kits in the future, I’ll also pre-paint the leaves before assembly.

I’m now pondering how to base these plants. I think little patches of bush might work best, rather than basing each plant individually.  This might also be sturdier.  I might have to go and see my good friend who is an expert with the jigsaw to help me cut some little irregular-shaped bases out of MDF.

New Zealand tree kits available

Further to my posting yesterday about an excellent range of New Zealand trees for use in NZ Wars wargames, I’ve bought some more, this time in kit version.

These Right Track kits are available for sale to New Zealand buyers on TradeMe for round $NZ11 to $NZ13 per pack (plus postage).  You can make between three and six plants from each kit.

For overseas buyers, Lawrie Copp from HobbyMailer tells me these kits can indeed be sold overseas – he would just have to first contact the post shop to find out the appropriate postage costs.  They are small flat packages, so I imagine wouldn’t be too costly to mail.  If you wish to purchase any, contact me on roly UNDERSCORE hermans AT hotmail DOT com, and I’ll pass on your order to Lawrie.

Excellent range of New Zealand trees

One trouble with wargaming the New Zealand Wars is that the bush in New Zealand has so many different plants from those found in other countries.  To add a real kiwi flavour to such games, you need to have at least a few tree-ferns and cabbage trees.

I’ve been mulling over this problem for months, looking at all sorts of potential sources to scratch-build such trees.  Then the other day I stumbled across an ad on TradeMe (our local version of eBay) for New Zealand trees for model railways.  So I splashed out and bought a box to assess their usefulness.

Well, having just received the box of trees less than an hour ago, I’ve assessed their usefulness as … very useful indeed!  They look really nice.

They’re quite simply made from laser-cut green paper leaves attached to various artificial or natural products.  But the end result is a perfectly distinguishable set of New Zealand plants. In the picture above you can see: a red flax, a ponga tree, a toitoi bush, a tree fern, a fern bush, a cabbage tree, and a flax bush.

In the background is one of my Empress Miniatures 28mm Māori warriors, which shows that the size of these trees is just about perfect for gaming purposes.

This picture shows the trees and plants loosely placed against one of my green tablecloths.   My favourites are the cabbage tree and the flax and toitoi bushes.  The Māori warrior again shows the excellent size of these trees for 28mm gaming.

I’m still mulling over basing them individually on coins, or in clumps. Some of the trunks are very thin, so I’ll have to think of a way to attach them securely. Actually, if there was only one thing I would have against these trees, it is that they are possibly going to be slightly more fragile than normal wargaming trees – but time will tell, and I’ll just have to pack them away carefully after games.

The smaller bushes will need to be dug into the basing a little bit to hide their bottoms, but that won’t be a problem at all. The taller trees will need some simple work with glue and flock  to make the join between the trunk and leaves more natural – again, not a major.

So far as colours are concerned, you can see they are currently all just the same original paper colour. I think I’ll spray them black, then paint them in varieties of colours. Luckily I’ve got three cabbage trees right outside my study window to work off!

If anyone is interested in these trees, they are produced by Right Track and available from HobbyMailer here in New Zealand.

Why does my painting look so terrible in photos?

I’ve noticed for a while now that when I photograph my figures, they look terrible.  The detail looks like it was painted on by a real ham-fist, the shading is blotchy, and the overall job looks messy.  This despite my being very happy with the actual figures in real life.   To the naked eye they look more than adequate.  But photograph them, and they look terrible.

I’d like to blame my camera, but I strongly suspect it is more to do with my increasingly impressionistic way of painting.  I do find it harder these days to see the detail  as I’m painting.   While I’ve never been as clean and crisp a painter as many of those featured on websites such as the Steve Dean forum,  I’m sure in the past my figures didn’t come out as bad in photographs.

A case in point is my latest work – a Warlord Games 28mm French vivandiere for my Sharp Practice gaming.

Here she is in all her un-glory:

Now compare her with a similar Foundry figure I painted several years ago.  Still not a painting competition winner, but definitely much tidier than my latest work.

One thing I have noticed is that my shading of the apron on my latest figure is a total disaster, so I’ll do that again.  I’ll also try to deliniate the frogging on the tunic a bit more (even though it looks fine to the naked eye).

I noticed the same decrease in painting quality in the picture of my latest naval officer and an older marine officer in my posting the other day.

Napoleonic naval landing party of sailors and marines

Lt Oratorio Porngrower RN (left) leads ashore a party of sailors and marines.   Keeping up with my return to painting ‘Big Men’ to lead my troops in skirmish games using the Too Fat Lardies’ Sharp Practice rules, I’ve just completed this 28mm naval officer by Brigade Games.  Though I’ve just realised I haven’t finished his basing!

Beside Porngrower is Lt Ffothering-Ffanshaw from the ship’s marine detachment.  He is a Foundry figure that I painted several years ago, but who has yet to see a fight on the tabletop.  This figure has to be one of my favourite ever Napoleonic figures – there is  something about his demeanour and posing that I love, and the marine uniform worn with blue trousers just looks so cool.

Here’s the whole party of sailors and marines wading ashore, all Foundry figures.  Click on the picture to see more detail. As with all my figures, the basing is not designed with any specific set of rules in mind.  But it should work fine for Sharp Practice, especially now I have some Big Men on their own separate bases.

A naval detachment obviously will need some waterborne transport, which is supplied by this Britannia Miniatures longboat and crew, also painted some years ago (again, click on the picture to get a lovely big view).   This model has also never seen the tabletop in anger, so will have to be somehow incorporated into my next Sharp Practice scenario game.

By the way, the background in the above photos is my actual back yard, and the water is clingfilm over a sheet of glass.

Next Big Man … er, Big Woman … to be painted will be the Warlord Games French cantiniere.