USS Meade painted

Following up on yesterday's article at TMP by Tony on building the USS Meade, comes another today on painting and finishing her up.

She looks beautiful with decals on and ensign flying. There is also a great section on how he made his own flying stand to hold up this model

Great job Tony!

You can see all the pics and details here:
http://theminiaturespage.com/workbench/941847/

USS Meade scratchbuild

Tony Harwood has posted an article at TMP on his scratchbuilding project of the USS Meade in 1/300 scale

http://theminiaturespage.com/workbench/640530/

You'll see we even get a mention here with this bit:

"The first batch of pictures show the initial stages of construction, plus some rough drawings that I made from pictures that I found on the web – Paul James' blog Yours in White Wine Sauce – and in particular, a set of photos entitled Fleets of the Red Sky (which can be found in the Aeronef section)."

Huzzah! Glad to be of service Tony and the Meade came out beautifully!

THE IMPERIAL TIMES 5th February 1907

At an emergency session of parliament this afternoon it was announced that a delegation from the government of the Ottoman Empire would be carrying out a full state visit to the island of Malta for a series of summit meetings and official entertainments aimed at reducing the levels of tension and promoting closer levels of understanding and cooperation between the two states. A spokesman for the council of the Knights of St John of Malta - His Eminence Brother John Betts - has welcomed this initiative as a way to foster stronger ties between the two nations. The Ottoman delegation - headed by Pasha Daud Kirouk, the minister for Scientific Development - has already announced that the Turkish party will travel using an Air Malta Transport and is confident that this meeting will do much to repair the distrust and antipathy resulting from the second siege of the island in 1904.This initiative has been applauded by the international community and is scheduled to take place in July of this year.As well as a formal tour of the island their will be a symbolic ceremony of mourning at the large military cemetery to commemorate the fallen of both sides in the recent conflict. It is understood that the Turkish party will also return some historical artifacts taken from the island in 1565 as a further gesture of goodwill.

This journal will report on the full itinerary as soon as it is made available.

The Colonel & Co. Experimental VSF Rules

Patrick of "Patrick's Hobby Shed" acclaim has posted a draft version on the VSF rules he has been working on Colonel Harry Haggis .

A d10 GASLIGHT conversion with bits from TSATF thrown in, you can read more about it here:

Patrick's Hobby Shed: The Colonel and Co. Experimental VSF Rules

Balloonatics!

Le Grand Courses Des Aérostats!

The page may be a few years old, but its darn impressive !
http://www.novag.org/images/cw03/Balloonatics/


Walt, of 'Le Grand Cirque' fame, is responsible, saying:

"This page contains a few images (courtesy of and thanks to Bill Rutherford) of the Balloon Racing game event put on by Walt O'Hara at COLD WARS 2003. This was a NOVAG event, held in our NOVAG club room (New Holland?). LGCd'A is a game of chaos, for the most part. Players take the part of balloon pilots in the first running of the Coup Gordon Bennett, a prestigious international balloon race that has been held annually since 1901. The mechanics are pretty simple-- cards tell you what the wind (or other players) are doing to your balloon, cards tell you when you activate, and cards tell you what terrain is coming up next. The course was held on a "rotating conveyor belt" of terrain boards that gradually moved down the course. The race was two 'legs' of six boards. Terrain features were all in two dimensions (mostly these were obstructions, like a mountain, hills or a volcano, but some terrain can change altitude as well).

SUMMARY: The game was a hoot to run and I think people enjoyed themselves. I am working on ways to speed up and streamline a few design points that were clumsy. I will run this at HISTORICON 2003."

The Flashman Papers

If you are on a spot of well earned leave from the Regiment and need something to read, you certainly must check out the adventures of Harry Flashman VC: Infamous British Officer, womaniser, cad and scoundrel!

http://www.harryflashman.org/home.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashman

Now if only Flashman would visit the Red Planet...

Steam Monster Sighted

Steam Monster Sighted

A new horror has been sent out into the world to wage war and cause issues among the nations of mankind.

Yes, that beast of a company Reviresco has unleashed a new kit for those so inclined.

As you can see it is large and powerful. Prepare your forces because who knows who has bought one.

A link to Reviresco here:

http://www.tin-soldier.com/

dafrca

ERB Map Room

If you are visiting this Blog, you are probably an Edgar Rice Burroughs fan and already have a few of his works in your library or parlour.

So, being an erudite gentlemen smoking a thin pantella, its time to don your smoking jacket, pour out a snifter of cognac and visit this site with some great maps of Barsoom and Pellucidar.

http://erbatlas.virtualave.net/atlas1.shtml

HMVS CERBERUS

Adding to yesterday's post on Cerberus, I thought I would add more about this ship and why she is my favourite pre-Dreadnought warship:

1- Launched in 1868, Cerberus is the only remaining Monitor (the first generation of modern battleships) left in the world.

2- Preceding HMS Devastation by almost three years, Cerberus was the first British warship to dispense completely with sail power and to incorporate the shallow draft.

3- Cerberus was the first, and is the only remaining example, of a Monitor having a central superstructure.

4- The design for Cerberus was the first in the world to incorporate the combination of a central superstructure with fore and aft gun turrets.

5- Cerberus is the only substantially intact surviving warship of any of Australia's pre-Federation colonial navies.

6- Cerberus was the flagship and most powerful warship of the Victorian Navy. In addition she was the most powerful warship of any of the Australian Colonial Navies and was the first armoured warship built for Australia.

The CERBERUS wreck off Melbourne

You can read more about HMVS CERBERUS at these websites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMVS_Cerberus
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~maav/hmvscerberus.htm
http://www.cerberus.com.au/myths.html
http://www.gunplot.net/colonialnavy/savecerberus.html

Brigade to make Nef scale Surface ships!

"A completely new range of historical pre-dreadnought era monitors and coastal battleships in 1/1200th scale. Ideal for use in Aeronef games."

There are four very nice looking models in the design studio, but my favourite is most definately this one:
VDN-101 Australian Cerberus class Monitor Possibly the world's first real battleship, the rusting hulk of the Cerberus lies off the coast of Victoria today.

She was a vessel of the Victorian Colonial Fleet and her wreck isnt far from where I used to live as a kid. I remember sailing past her several times and some of her superstructure is still visible.

More great releases to look forward to!

CANCON - a splendid day out!

On this weekend was CANCON, a large gaming expo in Canberra and the largest in Oz I do believe (http://www.cgs.asn.au/cgs_framework.asp?type=cancon).
Sadly my mate Owen, who had planned to come up for the weekend and the Con, had to cancel at the last minute. There is always next year though right?


I caught up with my mate Nic from Eureka miniatures, whom I had not seen for about two years and who furnished me with a nice box of lead goodies (including more 2mm infantry for Land Ironclads and some 15mm Dino and Mammoth Hunters!). Good to see you again mate.

Nic also introduced me to a nice fellow named Karsten, who had seen White Wine Sauce and had some very nice things to say about this place and the things we post here - most kind of you that was too Sir! (Interestingly, he found this place through your "Hobby Shed" blog Patrick). Karsten has a Germanic bent for his VSF forces and is starting his own VSF campaign soon using GASLIGHT. I look forward to seeing his campaign diary and the hi-jinks that will inevitably occur.

It was a pleasure you meet you Karsten, I only regret we didn't have more time to chat. I hope you will drop in often and leave us some messages.

I also caught up with Jerry of Castaway Arts (http://www.castawayarts.com.au/) who had travelled all the way down from Cairns. I hadn't met Jerry before but had ordered some of his very nice Gladiators many years ago when his company was new. Luckily for me, he was selling the Anniversary edition of The Sword and the Flame, which I have always been a fan of but haven't played for about 15 years. Armed with that and the French Foreign Legion supplement ("The Sword in North Africa"), I think the sands of Mars are that little bit closer!

Apart from that my son loved playing a demo game of Pirates! (and then spent his pocket money on some packets of cards) and we had a good old shoofty around tables, the great scenery and of course the bizarres to pick up a few other trinkets along the way.

Overall, a great day out, good to see an old friend, make new ones and pick up some goodies as well. Huzzah!

French Dino-Hunters

or I should say "Chasseur De Dinosaur"!

From Algiers to Paris to Indo-China, Frenchies come to hunt the biggest and most exciting game of all !

http://amdba.over-blog.com/categorie-648685.html

très magnifique!

(You'll need Babel Fish to translate the text, but the pics look like a cracking good time!)

Dirigibles of Imperial Russia

Another great archive of military aerostats, this time its the Tsar's aerial armada on exposition!


http://info.dolgopa.org/album/06_00e.htm

Land Ironclads coming soon from Brigade!

The Brigade Games' Design Studio page has had a very exciting development lately:

"Victorian SF fans are probably aware of the impending arrival of Wessex Games' 2mm Land Ironclads rules. As you'd expect, we'll be making a range of models to support the rules and here are the first ones. The rules and models should be released in late spring / early summer 2007"

There are 3 shown so far :
http://www.brigademodels.co.uk/Frames/New/index.html

VLI-001 'Assorted Contraptions': A variety of tiny 2mm tank models to support the larger Ironclads.

VLI-301 'German land Train': Modular land train made up of different sections, each with a specific purpose.











VLI-401 'French Ironclad': Medium-sized LI.

Dribble, dribble, drrooool, drroooool....

A tradition of red shirts...

I noticed the Steam Trek link below and couldn't resist.