Did you know they were that small?

 The Pendraken figures arrived. I'm so not used to tiny figures. My real glasses had to be used to see them and reveal their amazing detail. They're very nice figures most only needed a bit clipped off the the bottom of the base and a quick run over the file. Some of the cavalry had a support under the body and the tail which was quickly removed. The clean up process was easy but 450+ figures still takes some time.

The 2 Army packs less the artillery after a quick rinse.

I searched a few YouTube videos on painting 10mm figures and opted for a black prime and white dry brush. Just a dozen or so figures were done as a test. 

The first few stands.

I'm still pondering base sizes. I had thought 60mm frontage but although that would keep the figure count down doesn't give the mass. 80mm seems to give a good look. 9 Pikeman and 12 Musketeers. Any thing larger will drive the table size up to one I can't accommodate. 

80x35 in the foreground. The rear most stand is 60x35. Cavalry is on a 60x40/

A closer look at the 80x35. I think I'll go a little deeper.

So that's where I'm at so far. Still a bit on the fence with basing but I think trying it out with painted figures should give a better sense to how it will be.

Here's a couple of photos of what's been painted so far this. They've not yet been sorted to their proper homes.

Samurai, WSS, Warring States Chinese.

More Warring States Chinese.

Counting down 54,40,28,15,10,6 mm

 So one of the first things of a new project is the figures. Lately I been buying mostly 28mm figures. There are lot's of fantastic lines available in 28mm. I have some Swashbuckler figures already and feel 28's can be used in skirmish games and with movement trays bigger battles. From a cost perspective they're expensive for metal but the Warlord plastics ease the burden a little. I've painted some Warlord and felt they were easy to paint and looked good. The thing is I want the look of masses battalions and my normal twelve figure unit won't do that so I would have to build bigger units which then incur a bigger foot print requiring a larger table. I've rules these out as a choice. Here are a few of the brands I looked at, tough not to go with them.

Captain General Games 

Bloody Miniatures

1898 Miniatures, Tercios.

Warlord Games Pike & Shotte

Avanpost Thirty Years War

I have several periods in 15mm. Although I've mostly moved to 28's I'm still painting the 15's to complete the armies I have. Using a few of these I explored basing to see how things would look. I really like the figures from Viking Forge, Romans and Carthaginians are in my DBA collection. The price is better than the 28's but the foot print seemed bigger than what I wanted. A few of the available 15mm ranges.

Viking Forge 

Miniature Figurines

FrieKorps15 (QRF)

Next down the options is 10mm. These would have been dismissed out of hand had I not played a few games with some. Wargames Illustrated offered some Warlord Games Epic figures as part of their magazine. These came in strips much like Old Glory's range. Playing around with the Epic figures I felt this scale would give the balance of affordability, footprint, and the look I wanted. Several companies make these. Old Glory and Warlord both come in strips. Pendraken and Irregular are individual. 

Old Glory

Pendraken

Irregular Miniatures

Warlord Games

As for the other scales, 54mm I didn't even look down that street. 40mm Several good ranges but for already stated reasons were ruled out but how cool would an army of those be? Sash and Saber, Irregular Miniatures.6mm, having tried these several times in the past I knew better but had to check them out Irregular Miniatures of makes them and Baccus6mm makes great looking figures which come in strips of files, very tempting. Heroics and Ros also a well known company in this scale. 2mm wasn't on my radar but I recently saw this post that makes a convincing argument for them. Roundwood's World. 

Although I'm writing about this in February all this thinking went on during November and December of last year. In the final week of December I saw Pendraken was raising prices 12% in the New Year. I considered holding off making a purchase but decided to go ahead and commit. 

I think 10mm gives me all the things I'm looking for, Figures I can see to paint and play with, the look in the game I want and although the bases may end up being larger than I wanted it will still be acceptable. 

The Pendraken order all 438 figures.

Starting the Thirty Years War

 Yes I know I've said it before many times "no new projects" but ever since reading The Lion of the North The Thirty Years War has interested me. Never enough to seriously study in detail but enough to always want a Wargames army. I didn't want to rush into this as I usually do but give it some thought and identify what I wanted the end product to look like.

So what am I looking for?

• Units that look like the period pictures, massed pikes, sleeves of shot, large cavalry wings.
• Each unit is one stand.
• Gridded gameboard
• Gameboard with a relatively small footprint 2'x3' or 3'x4' 
• rules that capture the period, give the players decision points, provide a fast moving tense game. 

Here's a few of the resources I've been using

• Tercios Rules, has great images of units, rules seem solid.  
• Hex and Miniatures, baroque converted to squares and scenarios.
  
• Steven's Balagan, Site for Tilly's Very Bad Day rules as well as painting guide and other things
  
• Band of Wargame Brothers, blog by another gamer who has done this and his thoughts and results
  

That's the start of the project.