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Post by elliesdad on Sept 4, 2023 12:02:28 GMT
I did receive two armies painted by a friend over the past week or so (Abyssinians and Albanians) Macbeth - is your friend painting armies alphabetically? If so - unless your friend is a really, really, really fast painter - I suspect it may be quite a while till he/she gets round to Zapotecs and Zulus… 😂🤣 Cheers, Geoff
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Post by elliesdad on Aug 27, 2023 16:27:24 GMT
I've got three children, now teenagers. I find that all of them think a lot about our world and they question each aspect of life of their parents. And their moral standards are really high. (I even had to reduce my meat consumption. ) They simply try to find their best way through modern life, and that's o.k. I did the same. Cheers, Brian Kudos to your children. The point I was trying to make is that - at a very simplistic level - more people = more “stuff” consumed, whether that’s food, water, housing, vehicles or whatever. We can’t “grow” any more land (well, our friends in the Netherlands have been giving it a very good go but effectively the sheer size of the earth is finite). So we must use less resources, or manage them differently. Off at a tangent, but I have given thought as to how different the world would be if “people” were 50% size. Let’s assume that’s a rather convenient 3 feet tall rather than the current 6 feet. If you are less tall then you’d need less food and water. Housing would be correspondingly smaller (only 25% the footprint of a current house). Transportation would, however, be a big “negative” as it would now take an awful lot more steps to reach a distant location. Cheers, Geoff
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Post by elliesdad on Aug 27, 2023 16:06:20 GMT
Shouldn’t any newly built buildings be constructed of “white” material? In reality I suspect it would be the normal material but manufactured in such a way that it is/appears to be white and “ticks all the boxes for reflectivity” **
Cheers,
Geoff
** I’m not 100% sure that “reflectivity” is a word but, whatever, I mean the ability to reflect 😉
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Post by elliesdad on Aug 26, 2023 7:28:54 GMT
I’m a strong believer in the dangers of climate change, but the best solution is to reduce our population. Then you could burn fossil fuels, but wouldn’t burn enough to alter our atmosphere. You could also kill whales, but they’d be able to breed enough to avoid extinction. And you could cut down part of the rain forest, but not enough to prevent it from growing back. The problem is, how to reduce our population? Indeed. For example, let’s say there’s a couple (they live in one house, with just a single car). They then have 4 children. In, say, 20 years the children will all expect/want their own car. They will also be looking at moving out of the parental home into one of their own (let’s not get into the argument of “can they afford it?”). It’s safe to say the 4 children will probably be moving in with partners of their own, so each child only requires 1/2 a house each. In this 20 years we’ve seen this bunch of people treble in size (from a single couple, to a family of 6). The couple lived in one house, whereas they & their children have now expanded into the equivalent of 3 houses - the parental home plus 4 x 0.5. From a single car they now drive 5. Food? That’s trebled too, as the family grew from 2 people to six. Thank goodness I’m not a politician. Cheers, Geoff
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Post by elliesdad on Aug 22, 2023 19:44:32 GMT
I understand Trini Lopez often used to ponder upon that exact question - “If I had a spammer”… 🎤
Cheers,
Geoff
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Post by elliesdad on Aug 1, 2023 9:37:20 GMT
An aside from my recent musings on the Portuguese buccaneering in Africa, is the image of the Dutch fort on Ghana’s coast where excavations are being made to find earlier ‘English’ fort below. It shows how these latter day ‘buccaneers cum crusaders’ of the seas where connected to wealthy backers building forts to protect their trade interests on the African coast. See www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-66359512 CarlL Interesting … if a touch unsavoury given the particular history. Cheers, Geoff
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Post by elliesdad on Jul 27, 2023 8:20:59 GMT
Vodnik - you don’t like the Kremlin Miniatures castings? Admittedly one or two poses are not especially “gamer friendly” but I reckon, as a whole, they are great. In any event it’s not as if you need lots & lots & lots of castings. We are playing DBA after all. Cheers, Geoff - elliesdad
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Post by elliesdad on Jul 27, 2023 8:10:30 GMT
Well my 28mm DBA Portuguese colonial 'brigands' are coming along nicely. Began with figures left over from earlier Renaissance / Wars in Italy project then added some more Bd and then converted some unused spears to Bd. These 'Viking' like terrors of 15th century and early 16th century African coast and Indian Ocean coasts have picked up some painting momentum! I began with small ambitions as their fighting strength was generally small (mainly sailors in early days, ie 1400s, later backed up with soldiers / marines by early 1500s AD) so I had 8 Bd (including general) and 6 Bw (crossbows) - with option to replace with 6 arquebus if moving to 1500s) all finished and five psiloi / skirmish bases too, then went to BIG DBA mentality!! So I have added (and painted but none yet based) 2 more Bw (crossbow) - with option of converting to 2 arquebus - and 13 more Bd elements. Probably a bit top heavy in Bd as I reckon a DBA army should be 50% Bd and 50% Bw for period 1400 to 1520s before Portugal sent 1200 soldiers to India. Although DBA army lists don't cover this and I have looked to other similar rules (eg DBR & DBMM) and their lists which seem top heavy in Bd. Hope to have them based soon. Just went to add more firepower to balance out the Bd with Bw (crossbow) or shot / arquebus options. CarlL CarlL - you might want to checkout “Irregular Wars: Conflict at the World’s End” as it has not only helpful & realistic “army lists” but is also chock full of ideas for campaigning and more interesting battles. As the numbers of Europeans were limited then the Portuguese had to make much use of local/native troops. Cheers, Geoff
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Post by elliesdad on Jul 2, 2023 20:48:01 GMT
Last I heard it was a case of “keep looking at the website” and there’ll be an update when they’re ready to re-start selling. So, things should eventually be available again - it’s just a case of waiting until… whenever. I know that’s not especially positive, but at least it’s not an absolute NO. Let’s be right, most of us would have “stocked up” with more Alain Touller, Legion Heroica, Falcon etc if only we’d known what the future held. 😉
Cheers,
Geoff
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Post by elliesdad on Jun 9, 2023 18:10:39 GMT
Booklet was very much in the style of Lone warrior Journal albeit Paul Stein the author of the booklet has probably never seen 'Lone warrior' well worth looking out for on the US second hand trade / book stands. CarlL Still available from the Lance & Longbow Society. Cheers, Geoff
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Post by elliesdad on Jun 4, 2023 19:29:45 GMT
...different clan sashimono: Oda, Todo(Todo Takatora) and Mori... Am I the only one looking at these chaps on the right and singing “it’s fun to stay at the Y. mca”? Cheers, Geoff
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Post by elliesdad on May 31, 2023 19:58:03 GMT
I use 6mm and for muskets I have 16 to a base which looks pleasing to me. Light infantry skirmishers I put 4 on a base. 6mm for Napoleonics all the way, it's more of a 'big battle' feel. I do prefer the thin red line look myself which is the 40x20 look more than the 40x30 As with most things it’s pretty much “horses for courses”. Go with whatever feels/looks right to you. And if, like me, you mostly game solo then you’re on to a winner - you and your “opponent” will be singing from the same hymn sheet anyway. If, however, you do have other players to battle against then you might want to go with whatever basing option seems most popular. Cheers, Geoff
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Post by elliesdad on May 31, 2023 19:50:20 GMT
You might borrow following via inter library loan or read reviews to decide if it might help. Burma and Indo-China, by Ian Heath, Publisher: Foundry Books; ISBN: 9781901543063; 207 pages roughly A4 print size (roughly). I have the Chinese dynasties in 19th century book which is jammed packed with illustrations and potted histories, and gives an insight into armies well before 1800. It was originally published as Hardback in June 2009 for £25 it is long out of print and much sought after. It probably covers later period than your interests but many aspects may be same or similar other than use of firearms in this very traditional society till European and later Japanese imperialism impacted Burma (as it was once called). They are fast becoming collectors items so you will find seller on Amazon asking £87 for said book. So far cheaper to join library and get hold of loan copy to see if its useful. CarlL Wargames Foundry do have some of their titles available, and still at reasonable prices. Sadly, the Burma and Indo-China title isn’t one of them. It is a lovely, lovely book though, as are pretty much all of their books. Highly recommended 👍👍 Cheers, Geoff
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Post by elliesdad on May 31, 2023 19:45:05 GMT
At first I thought the post title was a vague reference to the Fall of Constantinople - 29 May 1453.
By pure coincidence (surely, unless they had planned the exact date of the show well ahead of time) one of the rounds on the series final of University Challenge on Monday 29 May here in the UK was to identify battles from a large scale map, a ⚔️ at the site of the battle and a year date. Yes, 1453 was indeed the Fall of Constantinople. Whether it was synchronicity or just astute planning by the BBC I don’t know.
Cheers,
Geoff
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Post by elliesdad on May 29, 2023 15:35:06 GMT
Has anyone got any information about ancient Burmese uniforms/dress or shield patterns? Thanks Book by Dan Mersey on the Burmese. Mine’s hiding somewhere- I’ll let you know when/if it comes out of hiding Ha ha 🤣😂 My copy is in a box, somewhere in a room pretty full of other boxes containing lots and lots of books, comic, magazines etc… Oh, and some Wargames stuff too… 😉 Heaven forbid I ever make a start on the “library” project and get some of this stuff onto shelves. Cheers, Geoff
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