A few more Italians

Have got a few more Italians done over the last couple of days. These chaps are (again) from the Strategia e Tattica Polybian Roman range, and although they are nominally hastati in attacking poses, they are going to be used primarily for my Roman Civil Wars armies, and have been based accordingly. With their mix of equipment and different coloured tunics they could be locally raised legions pulled together in a hurry, renegade Latins, slaves armed and fighting for their Roman masters - or slaves fighting against their Roman masters - Roman-trained Numidians, deserters in the east, disaffected Italians fled to Sertorius, Spanish armed as legionaries, ruffians gathered around Catiline, toughs pulled in to intimidate a crowd on voting day, etc etc. In short, they could be anyone or everyone. Should be quite useful, I think.

The painting is nothing special; I just wanted to get them done.

They can be fielded as six units of 12 if veterans, or four units of 18 when poorer quality.

Blog on!

I had a squizz at my blog stats today. If you look very closely, it's just about possible to make out the 'Russian bot' era.

Ooops...

I set up a table for a solo run-through of What a Tanker 6mm last night, and realised that 6 blokes around a table each with one 6mm tank is just not going to cut it, so I popped into a couple of model shops to see what they had.

It turns out they had quite a bit. Do I blame Two Fat Lardies or my own poor impulse control? Anyway, it's done now, so next task is to smuggle them into the house without drawing too much attention to how much I've spent!

Stocking up on the dip

It has caused me some angst recently to realise (after I'd knocked it over and spilt half the contents onto my table!) that my trusty, long-lasting pottle of acrylic wood stain is nearing its end. I thought therefore that I'd better re-stock, and also grab some extra that I can take to New Zealand with me next trip for future use.

So here we are, two fresh new containers (AKA a lifetime's supply - provided no one knocks them over!) of the miniature painter's last best ingredient:

15mm Roman cavalry

With the 'primed-and-ready-to-paint' boxes almost empty, I've been rummaging around in cupboards looking for figures that a) I feel like painting, b) might be useful and c) won't require spray priming in the current summer heat and humidity.

Fortunately, I found a box of Republican Romans I got in a deal with someone, and on looking more closely saw that all the cavalry was ready for paint, so I decided to make a start on those.

I actually feel a little guilty about this lot.  It is made up of a mixture of Chariot and Strategia e Tattica 15mm figures, which is a bit of an unusual combination. I know, because I did a post here suggesting that the two go together reasonably well.  Anyway, someone had bought selections of figures from the two lines, primed them, and then decided that they didn't really want to paint them up after all. I saw him advertise this fact, got in contact with the chap, and bought them off him.

The guilt comes from my wondering whether my original post (which I'd also put up to a wider audience on TMP) had been somehow instrumental in him making the purchase, and then of course in his being disappointed.

I hope not, but in any case, the best way to deal with the situation is to paint them up and use them!

So, to the painting.

These were done a little differently to my old style of painting Romans. I didn't bother with washes or stains prior to painting; my conversion to the dip method means that I now leave that to the end.

I did the horses in various shades, did the browns, the flesh, then cloaks in different reds. I did give a quick black wash on armour and spearheads, then painted on the bronze and silver. Shields were next, then plumes, belts, horse furniture and, finally, whites on the tunics and pteruges. There was a little highlight for cloaks and plumes, and then it was time for the dip.

There is quite an over-representation of command figures in this lot, but I'm sure I can find a use for them!

The photo above shows the problem that comes from skipping the pre-paint wash step I used to do - you can see I've missed a couple of spots on the hand and scabbard. If I'd used a brown wash to begin with those would not have been so obvious. Fortunately, due to the wonders of digital technology I've now seen them and can go and fix that up!

Here is a comparison with the older style painting.

You can see that the cloaks are darker and the folds more pronounced. I do quite like the slightly more cheerful look of the newer paint jobs though. Six of one, half a dozen of the other...

To finish these completely I'll bash out a few blazes and socks on the horses, then it's a case of waiting till autumn so I can give them a hit with the spray varnish.

(Warning) A political post

I keep politics out of my posts here, except perhaps for sideline observations about those practitioners of the art who have not read their history books.

But this last couple of weeks, and particularly today, I have been quite disheartened by political events and various commentaries I've read, and where they are leading us (and I include the commentaries in that).

I took my opinion of politicians from my grandfather, who served in North Africa and Italy, and was a man who believed in a fair go for everyone. Basically, according to the Jim Nicol doctrine, no one really trusts politicians. If they don't start a war, cause an economic meltdown, break the law or obviously use their position for personal gain they've done about as well as you could hope. You expect a bit of grandstanding, but when it comes down to it, you demand they put that aside and the needs of the country first.

Like everyone where I come from and of my age, I believe in democracy as a political system. People run for office, tell us what they want to do, and then we vote for them, or don't. After the election we watch what they do and factor that in for next time. Talking politics among friends is fine - and good debate time, if you enjoy being challenged, as I do - but always with the understanding that friendship is more important than any political or debate stance, and that we will agree to disagree when ideas do not align, and that this will not be a problem.

But that was in New Zealand, and twenty years ago.

I was extremely disappointed to read, a week or two ago, in a New Zealand media outlet, an article calling for a perk that was available to elderly people - a subsidy for folks on benefits, including the pension, to help them heat the house in winter when electricity costs are so high - to no longer be extended to the elderly, on the grounds that older people tend to be better off financially than other demographic groups, and because most of them are white. This was done without spending any time examining the simple facts around either of those condemnations.

Then, in the same outlet, there was discussion of a recent New Zealand free speech kerfuffle. This article examined the implications of denying speakers we don't agree with a platform, and concluded that it was a complicated issue, but denying the platform was probably worse. Sadly, the most liked comment on this article proved that neither the commentator nor his 'likers' understood either the article or the concept of free speech.

Then of course we've had more international politics, but I don't want to go into that.

What disturbs me is this: essentially, the ability for democracy to function is being undermined, and at a scarcely believable rate. At its heart, democracy requires an informed, engaged, and parochial electorate (by parochial I mean an electorate that considers wanting the best for country and citizens to be an essential 'good', while also recognising that such is not the only good). To get that within a democratic state we need a number of things. We need common ideas about what is good for the particular state and its citizens. We need accepted ideas of right and wrong. We need a common standard for verification of truth. We need laws, an acceptance that the law is just, that it applies to all equally, and that those wronged have recourse to challenge the law itself when the law is wrong.

All of these things are under threat.

Instead of an informed electorate, we have lifestyle opinions. People are engaged, but upon very narrow lines. Local-issue parochiality has been replaced by selectively appealing global-issue parochiality, and inevitable distortions have ensued. Ideas of what is good for a particular country have been undermined by what is good for the parochial sub-group. Basic ideas of right and wrong are I hope holding up, but it's getting more fraught all the time. The common standard for verification has been bushwhacked. Claims of self-interest, systemic bias and so on have made it very difficult to get acceptance on a common set of public facts, and this has led to competing claims and competing constituencies. The law is seen as something which favours certain groups, and so other groups feel justified in using whatever means to highlight and subvert this (not necessarily in that order).

As wonderful as the internet is for wargaming, in politics it has removed our idiot filter. The newspapers, magazines and publishing houses that filtered discourse and maintained common standards of fact and evidence are no longer the gatekeepers. The internet has become one giant letter to the editor, and those who share similar views congregate and make their own truth.

There is a militant attitude, based around causes, that defines a lot of internet interactions: a strange but understandable sort of mutually endorsing 'belonging' affair. Again, we are confronted with parochial - and often not fact-based - opinions which many people do not have the intellectual tools to treat with discernment.

I'm worried about where we go from here.

I fear as constituents of democracies we are losing our ability to make informed choices. My hope is that innate scepticism and cynicism will come out, even among the parochially engaged, but I am concerned that time may be running out on our old order.

Tanker Plan

Since I don't have the right models ready for WWII What a Tanker quite yet, I'm thinking I might use some early modern AFVs instead and give them WaT appropriate stats.

If, as a starting point, we make the M48A1 Patton (with its 90mm gun) roughly equivalent to the M4A3E2, that gives us 9 armour, 9 strike, and the heavy armour characteristic, worth 19 points all told.

If we make the T-54/55 roughly equivalent to the Panther A/G, that gives us 9 armour, 9 strike, and the fast characteristic, again worth 19 points.

Based on this comparison I'll drop the Patton's heavy armour characteristic and replace it with rapid fire to reflect its greater ammo capacity, its greater firing capacity, and its better sights. I'll also drop the Patton's strike value by 1 due to inferiority in gun calibre vis a vis the T-54/55. For the T-54/55, I'll also add low profile and slow turret, and keep the fast characteristic.

The points formula for WaT seems to be fairly easy to reverse engineer. It looks as if it's just 1 point for each armour and strike factor, and then a series of pluses or minuses for other factors, these being:

-1	slow; slow turret
0	TD (usually)
+1	fast; small; rapid fire; low profile; TD (once or twice)
+2	heavy armour; iron fist

So that gives us this:

	Arm.	Str.	Special	Pts.
M48A1	9	8	rapid fire	18
T-54/55	9	9	slow turret fast low profile	19

Next step then is to look to get a solo game in this weekend and see how we get on.

Adversaries line up for the national anthems...

EDIT: stats using Bill Butler's suggestions:

	Arm.	Str.	Special	Pts.
M48A1	8	9	rapid fire	18
T-54/55	9	9	slow turret low profile	18