Indulging our creativity in our hobby

I would never really describe myself as creative. I have never developed my ability to draw, or sculpt, for example. That said, I played music in my younger days (the violin, and then the viola.. and I was quite reasonable at it), and of course I have painted miniatures since 'I were a yung laad'. I guess that counts.

On top of that, in my professional work as a school leader I have lead our kura to a school vision to be a centre of creative excellence, recognising the importance of creativity to our capacity to be human.

Our school vision, writ large at our main entrance.

That said, I love nothing more than the creative challenge of creating interesting things from rubbish. It is enriching, invigorating, and most of all challenging. When Lorraine presented me with the empty reals from some ribbon she had used in her own hobby craft work (she is an amazing and prolific knitter), I relished the challenge of what to do with it. I am not one of those creatives who conceptualises things , sketches them, and then creates. Rather, I will take 'bits', and literally 'play' with them, shuffle them, hold them against other interesting bits, play with them to see what I can come up with.

The ribbon reels 'au natural'

After lots of 'playing around, I added them to a few paper towel rolls/cardboard tubes. I could se was piece of wargames scenery, from one of those dismal dystopian worlds, a chemical complex making deeply noxious poisonous 'gloop'. This would be ideal for HotT (Hordes of the Things) games set in the Weird World War 1 concept.

The basic cardboard pieces

I wanted that 'industrial' or 'steampunk' look, which in my head means rivets. So I took some heavy paper, and punctures rivets into it. The idea was that if glued to  the 'towers' and vats with the indentations facing inwards, I could create the raised profile of rivets.

Black paper strips with the indentations created.

The first strip glued to a tower.. I often do this with a single piece as 'proof of concept'

I also rummaged though my spares box looking for 'bits' that I could use to create detail on the components of the industrial complex.

Include din the detailing was the use of old Bic biro ink tubes, and the plastic sprues from old kits, to create some pipe work.

Oh, and there was a ladder...

I painted the 'towers' before assembly. A red brown coat over a black undercoat, with steel grey 'stipple' over the top

In addition to the strips that were 'joiners' of the sections of the towers and vats, I also used the same 'rivet' technique on an irregular rectangle of card to look like a'patch' on one of the towers.

The pipework was given a pseudo industrial look

The open vats (the inner parts of those ribbon spools) were filled with 'No More Gaps' to create the 'goop' that filed them. I also added a piece of an aquarium plant. I wanted the idea of a mutant plant grown because of corruption from the chemical goop that was being produced at the plant.

The goop was painted in greens, layered up from dark to light green to add light back into the terrain piece.

The new inductrial complex placed alongside an earlier creation made again from 'rubbish' (a piece of packaging, and a ping pong ball

The finished piece, with steam/smoke rising from one of the vats

Goop leaking from one of the vats

A mutant plant growing form a large spill of goop from one of the open vats

The terrain piece with a couple of Weird World War 1 pieces, the left a behemoth tank created from another 'ribbon reel'

With some 40K orcs

And with 40K mutants

And with some HotT 20mm Orcs

So this is me indulging my creative urges.  find this absorbing and relaxing, engaging and immensely satisfying. I love this stuff.

A great bit of 'myth busting'

I really enjoy good authorship and research that busts popularly held myths. In that vein some years ago good friend Pete lent me a couple of books by American researcher Walter S Dunn on the Soviet army in world war 2. Over the Covid lockdown I ordered a couple of those books to add to my own library:

        

Dunn has researched meticulously over the years, using original Soviet sources, and German sources, amongst others. He notes that often the German intelligence view was very close to that confirmed by the Soviet sources.

Dunn presents a mass of data that explodes many of the myths which I have to admit to having previously held. I'll describe one area in particular to make the point.

It os commonly held that by 1944/45 the Soviet Union was running out of manpower. Dunn uses population data to show that in fact the opposite was true. He shows that birth rates post civil war rose significantly, and health outcomes also improved. This meant that the Soviet Union was in fact able to mobilise up to 2 million men each year to add to its armed forces. The final wartime conscription 'classes were the biggest of the entire war.

What's more, the total armed forces deployed on the eastern front were maintained at over 6 million right through 1943 to 1945.  This is not to downplay the huge cost in lives that was the eastern front, but the myth of human wave attacks overcoming the staunch German defence simply do not stack up. This may have been the case in 1941, and possibly at times into 1942, as the Soviet Union worked to re-establish its economy and supply the armed forces with the weapons that they needed. 

Dunn describes the reductions in size of rifle divisions, something that others have held up as proof that recruitment was difficult. In fact, rifle companies were reduced in size and support units are expanded. Armour, artillery, tank destroyer, and self propelled gun, units are an ever greater part of the Soviet forces. The Soviet Union places ever greater numbers of automatic weapons in the hands of fewer troops so that firepower and combat effectiveness are not compromised.

There are many other old myths exposed by Dunn's work. He shows that by 1943 the Soviet Union had effectively won the economic war, the war of production, this coinciding with the Soviet command structures finally maturing to the point where Russian forces were capable of breaking the German line anywhere they chose.

This is good stuff, although Dunn's writing style can be repetitive, and the sheer volume of data is mind boggling at times. I don't normally buy non-fiction books in soft cover, but the hard back editions are a little pricier than I can afford. That said, I am glad I bought these. There are another few Dunn books that I think I'll invest in too.

This is a great bit of myth busting, based on solid reliable data (if the bibliographies are anything to go by). There's nothing better.

Those Weird World war 1 types acquire an airboat

I haven't been getting to much hobby stuff done lately, a combination of factors involving work, and the Covid situation. A year or so ago I bought the Airfix Be2c kit for use as an Airboat for the HotT (Hordes of the Things) Weird World War 1 army.

I hav missed the creativity that HotT allows in the construction of armies, and so this turned out to be a nice reconnection with some of those skills.

It was nice to reconnect wth a little kit bashing, although biplanes etc are often not that easy to assemble. The army is still a few points away from completion at 72 army points, the size for Big Battle HotT, so there is a little incentive there to finish this one too.

Kings of War v3.0 .. a first game.

No creative narratives here.. this was a 1500 point Kings of War game that Andy and I fought last night. We used 1500 points each, playing a loot based scenario. I used my Empires of Dust army, Andy his Kingdoms of Men army.

The armies face off... KoM on the left, Empire of Dust on the right

Andy's right flank Knights, supported by a regiment of archers

Reanimated behemoth in the EoD ;lines, a Desert Swarm regiment on the left

EoD spear horde held the centre, a regiment of Mummies on the right

The humans approach the EoD right held by a regiment of spear, and a regiment of Enslaved Guardians. The knights are making their way though the difficult terrain (lava flows)

Table top view as the knights approach the EoD right flank

Meanwhile on the left, the knights move around the woods. An EoD Warrior regiment supported by a second reanimated behemoth move to protect the army flank. A swarm regiment advances towards the archers

The knights charge in against the EoD right - an impeded charge

The spear regiment holds, allowing the enslaved guardians to swing onto the knights' flank

The EoD manage to get the reanimated behemoth ahead of the warriors to take the brunt of the charge which they know is coming

The threat against the EoD right is removed with the elimination of the attacking knight regiment

Now the EoD right moves to attack the supporting archers

The knights charge in against the EoD left flank

Meanwhile the enslaved guardians and a spear regiment attack the archers on the right.. again an impeded charge for the EoD units, charging through the lava flows

The centres clash - the spear horde take on a regiment of foot guard and a regiment of pike. Already lost to the humans has been a unit of foot guard on the right of the photo.. the reanimated behemoth has already advanced

The Swarm attack the archers - the aim is to keep the archers out of the action

The left flank warriors on the EoD left now join the reanimated behemoth in action against the knights Add caption

The archers eliminate the swarm

And the foot guard and pike eliminate the EoD Spear horde .. ouch

The knights attacking the EoD left are eliminated

The battle is lost, as the humans have few units left. their centre has been rolled up by the flanking Mummy and Reanimated Behemoth units. This was out first game with Kings of War v3.0. There are several rules mechanisms that we either got wrong, or which simple don't quite make sense... but we'll ask those more in the know, and see what we discover.