Native Son

Hi,

Things are starting to shake down here in Monkeyland.  Finished up the orientation for Newjob yesterday, and while I'm a little sad that Cub goes back to his mom's today, the upside is that now that we're in Halifax, we'll see him again in just over a week, rather than in several months.

On the geek front, I've spent some time modelling and priming up most of 1000 points of 40k orks.  The Cub has shown some interest, so I figured we'd take him down to the local for a few trial games.  He's also been painting a few old space marines I've got kicking around.  Three cheers for GW, gateway to the hobby ;)  I helped him a little with the eyes, but the rest is his work.  Not bad for an 8-year old, and a far sight better than his efforts of a few years ago.





For myself, I've managed to paint up a few more Natives for M&T. I like how they turned out, and feel better about these than the last batch of French.  Less rush, less feel of "work".  One thing that's pretty clear about how things will operate here; in the absence of any regular gaming, my painting is less instrumental.  With no pressure to get stuff on the table, I might get less done, but will also be painting for the joy of it, which comes with it's own advantages.



I also had a chance the other night to sit down and plan out the Acadian project a little.  Historically, this is one of those "margins of empire" struggles.  It bears a similar relationship to the F&IW as that bears to the 7YW proper.  While the bulk of the literature I've seen focuses on the Ohio / Champlain corridor / St. Lawrence theatres, there was a long-running guerrilla conflict, preceding the formal outbreak of war by several years.  French marines, militia and provincials, Abenaki and Mik'maq, Massachusetts colonial militia, mercenary ranger companies, and more, along with shifting identities, and mounting violence and atrocity.  The Acadians, with close kinship ties to the Mik'maq, cultural and religious ones to the French, and economic ones to Boston and Massachusetts, were torn apart, and eventually forcibly relocated.



Before we came out here, I picked up a mess of the 18mm Blue Moon figures.  The more I paint these, the more I like them.  I think, given the often metis nature of the Acadian community, and the sometimes haphazard equipment of the informal combatants, I might try my hand at some conversions.  I've done head swaps in this scale before, when I was putting with FoW cossacks, so I'm kind of interested to see what I can cook up here.



Another thing I'm looking forward to is making some terrain.  In addition to several 4Ground buildings, I'm going to need some terrain basics - hills, trees, etc.  I've been purusing some websites out there, and will see what I can cook up.



To help get me in the mood, I've been reading Faragher's "A Great and Noble Scheme" on the morning commute.  It's a sympathetic history of the Acadians from the earliest settlements to expulsion, and stresses the various connections that both pushed the Acadians towards neutrality, and eventually made that position untenable.  I've been finding some interesting similarities to recent histories of the US RevWar and 1812.  The Acadians comprised a nativist and North American culture, distinct from the imperial cultures that fought over Acadia territory.  In many ways, they were ahead of their time, foreshadowing some of the issues that would drive later conflicts to different ends.  If you get a chance, I'd recommend reading it.

FMB

Ready for Action

Hi,

Last week's game seems to have juiced up my painting muse, and I managed to finish off the last unit I need for a fully painted 200 points of Musket and Tomahawks goodness.



It's my second unit of natives, the ones I usually deploy with enhanced H2H effectiveness.

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With these guys completed, I now have 200 points fully painted, and have started thinking about how to expand to 400.



The basic plan is more of the same, adding another unit of each type, and an officer of each type as well.  That'll give me some good flexibility on the table.  Now I just need to get painting.

FMB

Back-ish

Hi,

A combination of unexpected car trouble, weekend travel, and a rotten cold combined to radically constrain both my hobby time and opportunities for blogging, so it's only in the last couple of days I've scraped together content for a post.  I did, however, manage to put the final touches on my first unit of Compagnie Franche de la Marine for Muskets and Tomahawks.



I'm really liking Blue Moon's 15mm stuff, at least what I've painted so far.  They're cleanly sculpted, with good detail, but not excessively fiddly.



They also come in a decent selection of poses, and they're generally pretty animated, while avoiding anything un-natural or goofy (with the possible exception of the guitar hero).



There's some nice detail on them too.





This now gives me 200 points painted, enough for a small game.  As I noted, with Cub's arrival in a week, blogification (and general hobbiage) will likely drop off, but I should get a game in with these at some point in the next couple months.



Barring unforseen eventualities, I should have a Bloodbowl game on Wednesday against ChrisB.  Fingers crossed that the fates don't conspire.

FMB

Bury this.

Hi,

Since I've been back from visiting the Cub, I managed to finish up a first unit of natives for Muskets and Tomahawks.  The units for these guys run small - no more than a half-dozen figures, so I did them in a batch, along with an officer.



These are the Blue Moon 15mm figures and, as with the test figs for their Compagnie Franche de la Marine, they are terrific.  Well-proportioned, dynamic and varied poses, good detail.  At stock price, they're affordable; with the OG discount card, they're cheap as chips.



I'm running the unit as part of a French force.  The natives come with a number of costed options that let them be used in a variety of ways.  The plan is for this squad to represent my Hurons, who have characteristics assigned that make them better shooters, and also allow them to respond to orders from French officers.



I played around a little bit with war-paint, but not on every figure.  I didn't find too many reliable references, but there's some good resources out there, and I'm sure with a bit of digging I'll turn something up.



The next unit of natives I do will be more oriented toward hand-to hand.  I'm thinking in historical terms they'd be some of the types from the great lakes back-country, the tribes for whom the Huron and Iroquois acted as middlemen to the French.



In the meantime, I've made a start on the rest of the first squad of French Marines, and I've got a Maurice campaign game scheduled for Wednesday, which should mean regular blog updates.

FMB