I confess, I was getting lazy. It didn't taking much looking and poking to come to the conclusion that early cogs usually had 1 mast........in the middle of the ship. I thought, well ok so just 1 sail not 2 but I could keep the front mast and add it for 18thC ships. ....mhmmm... well..... oh damn it! Get out the Dremel and various other tools and lets fix it, I'll sleep better. (OK not really, I wasn't that bothered.)
So, here we are:
NOW Can I finish painting them? I think so.
Born and raised in the suburbs of Montreal, 5 years in the Black Watch of Canada Cadets, 5 years at the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean followed by 4 in the navy. 25 years with CPC in IT simultaneous with 23 years running a boarding kennel. Inherited my love of toy soldiers from my mother's father. Married with a pack of Italian Greyhounds and 3 cats. Prematurely retired and enjoying leisure to game, maintaining our 160 yr old farmhouse and just living.
Life begins to return to normal and work has resumed.
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When I started out, I was thinking of Viking ships but it was soon clear that turning 17/18thC pirate ships into long ships was not going to happen. It also didn't take long to figure out that my Elastolins on washers, and the ships as cast, were an awkward mix. There just wasn't enough room for the Elastolins to take up fighting positions.
A bit of digging around on the Web, and in my Prince Valiant reprint illustrated tales, soon decided me to work towards early medieval sailing ships or Cogs. 1st hurtle crossed.
I decided to remove the foremast of the new, not yet painted, ships to make room for a few more warriors. Then I turned to the stern and decided that I needed a poop deck since the raised stern had a very narrow walk way around it that just too narrow for the washer based Elastolins. After a bit more searching for pictures, drawings, and some pondering, I decided to add a poop deck.
Then I thought, maybe I should have at least one ship with the capacity to mount a catapult. Since the Britons have more ships, I reluctantly decided to give the Saxons the catapult capacity.......for now......
Now, back to painting!
Born and raised in the suburbs of Montreal, 5 years in the Black Watch of Canada Cadets, 5 years at the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean followed by 4 in the navy. 25 years with CPC in IT simultaneous with 23 years running a boarding kennel. Inherited my love of toy soldiers from my mother's father. Married with a pack of Italian Greyhounds and 3 cats. Prematurely retired and enjoying leisure to game, maintaining our 160 yr old farmhouse and just living.
**Now with more pictures!
Yesterday was most enjoyable day with 5 old...long time... friends. Four of us played with our host's 25mm Minifig ECW figures painted in the 70's by himself, along with some of my old Highlanders added to his a few years ago. After a good close game, (ok maybe not that close), our host provided an excellent feast with plenty of conversation and perhaps a few reminisces.
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| Not my best shot but I couldn't back up any farther or avoid the lamp, our host was preparing lunch, and I was behind the cellphone. (Not quite sure why the photos make it look like all of us have white hair..........😉.) |
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| It doesn't happen often but Rob caught a picture of me as well. |
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| The last stand of the Irish mercenaries under my command. (The little dice are marking hits.) |
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| All over now as the Royalist infantry chase the last Covenanters out of the town. |
The memories will remain. One of my favorites was in my early days in Halifax (1979) when I had been recently posted from the West Coast. Phil & Sue Barker were over to a US Convention, probably Historicon, and the club had invited them to Halifax. They were a bit surprised to get off the plane to be greeted by a uniformed Police Officer. (Fresh off duty without time to change!) But he wasn't arresting them, just driving them to my apartment where I hosted them.
Here's good fortune to my friends and their children and grandchildren.
Born and raised in the suburbs of Montreal, 5 years in the Black Watch of Canada Cadets, 5 years at the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean followed by 4 in the navy. 25 years with CPC in IT simultaneous with 23 years running a boarding kennel. Inherited my love of toy soldiers from my mother's father. Married with a pack of Italian Greyhounds and 3 cats. Prematurely retired and enjoying leisure to game, maintaining our 160 yr old farmhouse and just living.
The terrain bin is loaded, we'll be using Paul's figures and he has designed a scenario.
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| A shot from a 2018 club game. |
Some kind of battle report to follow.
Born and raised in the suburbs of Montreal, 5 years in the Black Watch of Canada Cadets, 5 years at the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean followed by 4 in the navy. 25 years with CPC in IT simultaneous with 23 years running a boarding kennel. Inherited my love of toy soldiers from my mother's father. Married with a pack of Italian Greyhounds and 3 cats. Prematurely retired and enjoying leisure to game, maintaining our 160 yr old farmhouse and just living.
Just back from visiting family across the ocean, well across the Bay of Fundy anyway. A short, 5-6 hour, drive (about 500k) but I decided to get lazy, relax and try the bus. I must be getting older because I enjoyed just sitting back with headphones
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| Bits and pieces to go. |
While away, I got an invite to a 25mm ECW game and oh, can I bring the terrain again? Yup. So, I spent much of this afternoon gathering 20mm and 40mm bits that more or less work for 25mm.
Born and raised in the suburbs of Montreal, 5 years in the Black Watch of Canada Cadets, 5 years at the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean followed by 4 in the navy. 25 years with CPC in IT simultaneous with 23 years running a boarding kennel. Inherited my love of toy soldiers from my mother's father. Married with a pack of Italian Greyhounds and 3 cats. Prematurely retired and enjoying leisure to game, maintaining our 160 yr old farmhouse and just living.
Gone but not forgotten.
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| https://gameofmonth.blogspot.com/2014/11/lap-loving-hector-taker-of-naps.html |
Born and raised in the suburbs of Montreal, 5 years in the Black Watch of Canada Cadets, 5 years at the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean followed by 4 in the navy. 25 years with CPC in IT simultaneous with 23 years running a boarding kennel. Inherited my love of toy soldiers from my mother's father. Married with a pack of Italian Greyhounds and 3 cats. Prematurely retired and enjoying leisure to game, maintaining our 160 yr old farmhouse and just living.
....when I suspect that I am creeping towards old age, forgetting things and being tardy (mind you, I have been forgetful and tardy since I was 5 yrs old, so its hard to tell). Anyway, I usually post a Remembrance Day blog post but this year I only posted on FB.
I did watch the ceremony broadcast from Ottawa, standing to attention when the last post was sounded as usual. To my surprise though, I found myself think not of previous generations, but of my own friends who have seen active duty in the years after my 9 years were up, and then remembering 50 years ago when several times I was one of the red coated officer cadets, marching through the streets to do honour those who had risked their lives and paid the price, whether it was their life, a limb, or less visible suffering.
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| Thank you to CTV for this 2024 photo. The redcoats with pillbox caps will be from 1 of the 2 military colleges (we used to alternate). |
Lest we forget.
Born and raised in the suburbs of Montreal, 5 years in the Black Watch of Canada Cadets, 5 years at the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean followed by 4 in the navy. 25 years with CPC in IT simultaneous with 23 years running a boarding kennel. Inherited my love of toy soldiers from my mother's father. Married with a pack of Italian Greyhounds and 3 cats. Prematurely retired and enjoying leisure to game, maintaining our 160 yr old farmhouse and just living.
But it's better than nothing.
To be honest, getting the right size and shape for the Poop decks, and fitting them with the details on the hull, was harder than I anticipated. A bit of filler and paint etc will cover the clumsy bits
Born and raised in the suburbs of Montreal, 5 years in the Black Watch of Canada Cadets, 5 years at the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean followed by 4 in the navy. 25 years with CPC in IT simultaneous with 23 years running a boarding kennel. Inherited my love of toy soldiers from my mother's father. Married with a pack of Italian Greyhounds and 3 cats. Prematurely retired and enjoying leisure to game, maintaining our 160 yr old farmhouse and just living.
This is going to take a teeny bit more time and effort than I would have thought, if I had taken time to consider the matter, but they are coming along nicely.
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| "Is that your whole work team??" |
One of the interesting and useful qualities of the original Prince Valiant series is that it mixes a wide variety of settings and time, mixing late Romans and Huns with Vikings, Arabs, North American "Indians" etc., up to 12thC or even 13thC knights. When I went looking for references of the sort of ships that might fit in, I initially thought of Viking long ships, but the variety of ship styles in the strips gave me wide options, but, various cogs not only appeared most often in the strips but it was the easiest option for modifying my toy pirate ships into ships for Prince Michael and his foes to sail across the tabletop.
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| Modern replicas. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cog_%28ship%29 |
Without having thought about it, I was kinda expecting all sorts of 'flash' paint jobs, like the Greek triremes with the big eyes etc but nope, most of the replicas are just plain wood like an everyday working ship with only a few having some spiffy trim. Which is good for me, much simpler for ships that will probably have to serve from the Dark Ages to the 16thC to the mid 19th Century on Lake Champlain or the Great Lakes or some fictional setting. After all, they will be toy ships for toy soldiers, not historical models.
Born and raised in the suburbs of Montreal, 5 years in the Black Watch of Canada Cadets, 5 years at the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean followed by 4 in the navy. 25 years with CPC in IT simultaneous with 23 years running a boarding kennel. Inherited my love of toy soldiers from my mother's father. Married with a pack of Italian Greyhounds and 3 cats. Prematurely retired and enjoying leisure to game, maintaining our 160 yr old farmhouse and just living.
"G'day Mi'lady, have you come to see how your new ships are coming along?"
"Yes you little Imp! But I ordered 2 new ships, and some refurbishing of the old one, but this looks
like 5 ships in all. One of which looks very much like my arch-enemy Earl Elgin's black ship!
Do you care to explain?"
"Hmm...ahm...errgh...ahh...well, Mi'lady....we needed money to furnish your new ships so we did accept the Earl's contract to add 1 more and refurbish another, prepaid, in gold and silver, Mi'lady "
"Earl Helgin's ships??" "hmmmarrgh_ahm.....yes...Milady"
"Gawain, you scamp! You and Prince Micheal must have known of this!"
"Well, we will not break a contact but once the ships are finished, dragged down to the water and
handed over, go find that young scamp of a prince and I expect the two of you to go win them
in battle and bring them back or sink them!"
Born and raised in the suburbs of Montreal, 5 years in the Black Watch of Canada Cadets, 5 years at the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean followed by 4 in the navy. 25 years with CPC in IT simultaneous with 23 years running a boarding kennel. Inherited my love of toy soldiers from my mother's father. Married with a pack of Italian Greyhounds and 3 cats. Prematurely retired and enjoying leisure to game, maintaining our 160 yr old farmhouse and just living.
Its been a busy couple of weeks, just not much hobby time but its time I wake up my table, roust a bunch of figures, and get a game set up. The question is: "What period and scenario?".
My ACW lads are near the top of the list but I just can't seem to come up with a fresh scenario for them and anyway, while watching our next door neighbors getting all worked up, I wouldn't want to give them any ideas. That leaves me my Prince Valiant collection and my 16thC lads, both last played several months ago.
Of course, I'ts also time to work on some figures but that also means making a decision.......
Born and raised in the suburbs of Montreal, 5 years in the Black Watch of Canada Cadets, 5 years at the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean followed by 4 in the navy. 25 years with CPC in IT simultaneous with 23 years running a boarding kennel. Inherited my love of toy soldiers from my mother's father. Married with a pack of Italian Greyhounds and 3 cats. Prematurely retired and enjoying leisure to game, maintaining our 160 yr old farmhouse and just living.
