Now, I’ve always known that Baccus (my 6mm manufacturer of choice) sells this basing pack called the “Baccus Basing System”, which includes fine sand and short static grass that are specially selected to be compatible with 6mm miniatures.

But being the cheapskate that I am, I didn’t believe that the “normal” sand and static grass will look too big/long and out of place. So I went ahead with my own way, and this was what I got with my first attempt at basing 6mm minis.

You can see that the grass is so long that it reaches above the knees, making these Spartans look like they’re wading through some thick jungle undergrowth.

I had also scoffed at buying pre-cut MDF bases, so I cut out some 1mm thick plasticard sheets to the required size and glued them together to make a 2mm thick base. Apart from this being a whole lot of work, I just couldn’t cut the sizes accurately enough by hand, so the seam between the two pieces of plasticard sticks out like a sore thumb.

After weeks of agonizing over how best to correct these problems, I finally broke down and bought a pack of 40 pre-cut 60mm x 30mm MDF bases and the “Baccus Basing System”.

Then I removed my Spartans from the old sub-standard base, and re-based them using the “Baccus Basing System”, going “by the book” in accordance with the instructions included with the pack. One slight deviation I made was to paint the base of the figures green instead of the recommended brown, as I thought it would look more natural against the grass.

And now, I hereby proudly present my re-based Spartan hoplites!

Looking at the end results, I think that maybe I should have sticked “to the book” and painted the figure bases brown. The green color seems to give a clean but artificial look.

But all in all, I’m impressed with the “Baccus Basing System”, and how easily it gives good-looking results!

Since this was my first ever attempt at creating terrain, I thought it best to experiment on something expendable. What more expendable than those ubiquitous CDs? I grabbed hold of a couple of obscure ones that came with some digital gadget or another years ago, and “sacrificed” them

Well… while the results weren’t exactly what I was expecting, they were satisfactory enough for a beginner’s first attempt. I think the grass flock I’ve used were a bit too green, giving an artificial kind of look.

Another disappointment was the dirt road. I’ll need to work on a better blend of colors, as the ones I’ve used don’t really give the impression of a dirt road.

Oh, and we welcome our special guest models: 6mm Spartan hoplites!

Now I’ve got a bunch of Line Infantry washed, prepped, primed, and ready for painting!

I hate the noxious smell of spray cans, so I prime all my miniatures (be they 28mm, 15mm, or even 6mm) by hand with black acrylic gesso.

This takes quite a bit of time, but I like the absolute control it gives me. I don’t know how many times I had to apply additional spray coats because there were certain portions of the miniatures that the spray didn’t “hit” properly!

I’ve just received an email from Amazon.com, informing me that Kindle for Blackberry is now available!

Blackberry users can simply type “amazon.com/kindlebb” on their Blackberry browser to download this.

Man, I’ve been waiting so eagerly for this!

Lasalle recommends building a unit as a group of 4 to 6 bases sized 40mm x 20mm, while Black Powder recommends their units made up of 6 to 8 bases sized 20mm x 20mm.

So if I simply go by their recommendations, it would seem best to use a 20×20 basing. This way, I can join up two of them to create 40×20 bases when playing Lasalle.

But my problem is… would this look good?

I personally love the massed look of 60×30 or 60×60 bases that seem to be the norm when it comes to 6mm. These bases are so roomy that you can place a minimum of 24 figures on them, and some people go all out to make each base into a “mini-diorama” or “vignette”.

But on the other hand, I like the idea of using groups of smaller (20×20 or 40×20) bases, since this will allow me to change the formation (March Column, Attack Column, Line, Square) of my units, which is a rather important part of “Petit Tactical” rules like Lasalle and Black Powder.

So I cut out some hardboard (thick cardboard) bases, grabbed a bit of Blu-Tack, and made some mock-ups to give me a better idea of what the end result will look like. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough miniatures lying around to effectively demonstrate the full effect. But still, I think this mock-up gives a rather good idea of what I can expect.

20×20 Basing

First up, mock-ups of a unit consisting of six 20×20 bases:

Well… while they certainly look practical for changing formations and such, they look a bit too “gamey”. Another consideration is that I’ll probably be fielding a good number of units, which would probably mean that I’ll have to spend a lot of time moving these guys around the table.

40×20 Basing

Next are two bases of 40×20. I didn’t have enough spare minis to make the required 4~6 bases, but you get the idea

Visually, they certainly are a big improvement over 20×20.

60×30 Basing

Lastly, here’s a mock-up of a “scenic” 60×30 base.

Even though I’ve placed 36 figures on the base instead of the usual 24, it still feels more like a “vignette” than a gaming base. I think this can be a problem if I want to use multiple bases to make up a unit, as each base would tend to stand out.

So what’s my decision?

I’m definitely ruling out 20×20, but I’m torn between 40×20 and 60×30. I have a bigger order of British infantry on its way over from the U.K, so I’m thinking of making a better mock-up with actual unit sizes before committing myself to a base size.

I’ll give an update when it’s done!

It’s actually been quite a number of months since I’ve bought this army of 6mm Ancient Greeks from Baccus, but only recently shrugged off my lethargy enough to get two units of them painted and based.

Once I set my mind to it, I was surprised at how easily and quickly I could paint these minuscule soldiers; it only took me a single weekend to complete 96 figures!

Oh, and I am aware that the accepted historical appearance of Spartan hoplites is of them carrying bronze shields with a red “lambda” painted on it… but I thought a red shield with white “lambda” would have better visual appeal, especially at such a small scale

I’ve cut out two pieces of 1mm thick plasticard, measuring 60mm x 30mm and overlapped them together to serve as the base; I’m still undecided whether I want to continue using this method for the rest of the army. I’ve recently bought a bunch of 2mm thick hardboard, so I’ll probably experiment and see which I like best.

In any case I’m as yet only a beginning miniature painter, so please try to refrain from demoralizing comments!

It doesn’t usually snow much over here, with 10cm of snowfall typically considered “heavy”. Despite KMA’s (characteristically inaccurate) prediction of 3cm ~ 7cm of snow, Seoul (the capital city) was hit with a whopping 25cm!

Here are some fun pics I’ve taken, which I think wonderfully illustrate just how thick the snow was.

Enjoy!

Ever since the Kindle for iPhone app was released in March earlier this year (2009), there were much speculation and hope that a similar application will be released for the BlackBerry soon. Amazon then revealed that such an application was indeed in the works, boosting up hopes for BlackBerry users like me.

After nine long months, it seems that the Kindle for BlackBerry application is almost around the corner, as Amazon has recently put up a “coming soon” page where you can sign up for an email notification as soon as it becomes available.

Hurray!

I’ve been carrying my iPod Touch in my pocket in addition to my BlackBerry, just for the purpose of reading Kindle books. Looks like I won’t need to continue this awkward practice for much longer!

What’s so great about a “Kindle for iPhone” or “Kindle for BlackBerry” application, you ask?

Amazon has been selling electronic books for a couple of years now, but they could only be read on their proprietary e-book device called the Kindle.

The thing that makes the Kindle so great is the fact that Amazon is arguably the biggest internet bookstore in the whole world, and that makes many publishers grant exclusive rights to Amazon for selling electronic versions of their books. Many of these publishers are normally adverse to the whole idea of e-books, and wouldn’t event think of granting such rights to the dozens of other e-book vendors out there, even the more well-known ones such as eReader, Fictionwise or MobiPocket.

While I’ve been a long-time customer of eReader and Fictionwise (for more than 5 years), I had no choice but to switch to Amazon because I couldn’t buy many of the books I want to read from anywhere else. Naturally, this means that I need a Kindle to be able to read these books I buy from Amazon.

But with the release of the “Kindle for iPhone” app, I am able to read these “Kindle e-books” on my iPod Touch, even though I do not own a Kindle. Once the “Kindle for BlackBerry” is released, I will be able to read these books on my BlackBerry Bold too!

It’s quite amazing how the lyrics for a whole song can fit into such a compact and intuitive flowchart.

But then again, it looks undeniably geeky… which maybe is the whole point?

BLACK POWDER: Battles with Model Soldiers in the Age of the Musket

Warlord Games is a well known manufacturer of 28mm hard plastic figures in the Roman and English Civil War era. They’ve now teamed up with the famed Rick Priestley and Jervis Johnson (both of them being pivotal architects of the immensely popular and games) to create , a rulebook for miniature wargaming in the “Horse & Musket” era.

Here’s an excerpt from Amazon’s product description.

Black Powder is Warlord Games’ first publication. It is a beautiful book in its own right with hundreds of color photographs taken by the Perry brothers of the most exquisitely painted model soldiers from their world-renowned collection.

The rule book’s intention is inspire a collector to play gentlemanly games with their own collections of soldiers with friends where the emphasis is on the spirit of the age of musket, not the letter of the rule. With decisive battles from the key wars of the period, such as El Teb, from the Sudan War, Ntombi River from the Zulu Wars, Alma from the Crimean War and Freemans Farm from the American War of Independence, as well as two fictional scenarios from the American Civil War and Napoleon’s Wars, there really is something to keep everyone happy. It is a hearty publication and not for nitpickers or miseries. There are some good gags in it, but it also plays well and enables players to conduct a very big battle in a civilized period of time, leaving them more time to chat about the highs and lows and what ifs.

Rick Priestley is best known as the famous Warhammer and Warhammer 40000 author, the world’s best selling table top miniatures game and Product Director for Games Workshop. He lives in Nottingham. Jervis Johnson is also an internationally renowned games writer and luminary in the gaming world. Jervis also lives in Nottingham but has a very posh voice.

Now, the important thing is that this rulebook normally retails for 30.00 GBP at British retailers, or 55.00 USD at American ones.

But at Amazon, they’re accepting pre-orders at an unbelievable price of merely 20.95 USD!!!

I knew for some time that there was a “Pre-Order Special” going on at Amazon, but I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the price. I mean, this is less than half the price of what the book’s selling for anywhere else!