Pics from Zvezda - hot war figs

My first Reaction = YAY pics, let me see, let me see!
My Second Reaction = WOW awesome! these are great. gimmie, gimmie gimmie.
My Third Reaction = Why won't they do a large set :-(

anyway here are the pics... I'll let you decide what you think

the Soviets, by far the best in plastic! but a pitiful amount... but still excellent

Well first up its the Russians! and Wow. great stuff, the only Russians available for the era (1980's) in plastic is limited to Spetnaz (esci/italeri) and Airfix (small figures, and not that detailed). These guys are a great addition to that small list. My only complaint is that there is not a full set! but beggars can't be choosers, but still is this small set going to compete with so much metal?

again excellent but we already have a good set from Esci!

Next up its the USA, again great figs! However these figs have competition... Esci has a set of troops and these have recently been reissued by Italeri. once again Why not a full set?

a BTR-80 (please tell me I got that right)

Now for a kit! yet if its like the other at of tactic vehicles this will be 1/100 scale and not 1/72 and so no use to me.

Well there we go! some pics of some great figs, but the quantity is the issue even if the quality is amazing. still its on the list but knowing how prices work these figs won't be building up my armies any time soon. Also my other complaint is; Where is the NATO troops from other nations? and the same for the WARSAW pact nations. are we only going to get a few sets??? I guess keep your eyes on the news and on PSR. but from me that is all.

Discussion: Oronegro sci-fi

Well this post is here so that people reading this blog can comment on what they thing about sci-fi elements in Oronegro. So far there have been stories, plans and concepts but nothing conclusive has yet been written down.  I have split the main ideas I have into different categories so that you can look at each one.

I want to see what you think, because I want to one day open up the Oronegrean world for others to play around with. so right now I am setting the basic outline and a few basic fixed facts and one day, sooner or later you can all add your own things and play around in the Oronegrean world. I have allowed anyone to comment now so we can all add our ideas.

The Bunker and other advances forces

The bunker has been discussed already, but let me go over some key points. The Bunker was set up long ago and is home to NAZI scientists who after WW2 fled to Oronegro. Their experiments on kidnapped people range from finding ways to prolong life (the scientists alive in the bunker are the same ones that fled in the 1940's) all the way to creating the zombie virus (discussed later) and to making advanced forms of weaponry.

some technologically advanced force. still the can be killed by a well trained force though.

Well the Bunker is not the only place that creates these super soldiers and their even more super equipment. there is also room for another force other plains in Oronegro. this force could be bunker troops that have been smuggled in some way to this place. more will be discussed about these plains in the next segments.

Zombies and mutants

this is something I have given quite a bit of thought to, we all like zombies, and they are one of the more plausible horror concepts. also because they can be either a small battle field nuisance all the way up to a huge terrifying force, they are very simple to put into the Oronegrean story.

this guy hopes he has enough ammo

Zombies will come from either the bunker or elsewhere. they'll make everything very interesting. and yes they also might turn up in the plains. as for mutants  its a pretty similar story.

Aliens and creatures

Well these are the most outlandish of the sci-fi concepts. Aliens are not going to be to much of an issue, they'll be a few scouts, looking to see how the world emerges from WW3, who have come to Oronegro because its easier to hide in a place that humans themselves hide (they did their research). They will have advanced technology but will also be killing machines in their own right, easily able to kill a group of unarmed humans lost at night.

monster or alien? either one, but still its scary.

the creatures are beasts from the forests and jungles, they are very intelligent and have come out to put a stop to this madness which is turning their already harmed homeland into a burnt and polluted mess. The creatures will not be armed in anyway except for their own bodies, venoms or toxic sprays. Once again these will appear on the plains, and in the jungle.

Both the Aliens and the creatures will be good killers, but when the military turns up or they face a person who is very skilled with knives or other more primitive weapons, they shall find themselves in a spot of bother. the aliens may have only limited support from their advanced vehicles and flying machines.

The plains

The plains will be the scene for most of this scary, sci-fi activity! the plains are Oronegro's second farming area, they are full of small towns and have one big city. the city of El Puerto Segundo. this is comparable to La Ley in size and was full of very modern buildings, since this area is where quite a bit of the oil came from.

Puerto Segundo is the only city on the plains.

If the sci-fi concepts are of interest then the story for the plains in the civil war is simple. Mostly loyal to the National forces, except for a small group of rebels, the plains (apart from the city itself) were hit by nuclear weapons, and other more dangerous ones designed to create zombies and mutants. these came either from forces from the bunker itself or were supplied to rebel or Soviet forces in the area.

the area soon becomes a toxic wasteland, which brings out the armies or creatures from the forest, out for revenge on human kind for destroying their sacred land. The aliens can just notice this attack and because they are already in Oronegro, come here to analyse the effects of these human weapons but end up getting into conflict with the soldiers. The advanced army which has also now appeared in the plains now advances on the city, encountering national forces, creatures and aliens alike.

in the end your left with a really messed up place with the main city a battle ground between soldiers and advanced forces (aliens or the bunker troops) and the surrounding countryside a death trap for people lost at night!

Well there you go... tell me what you thing

All this is conceptual nothing is certain... I still have to walk the dog and its dark outside, why did I go looking up monsters that picture is creeping me out... and I have a horrible imagination that means as soon as I start day dreaming I'll imagine that one of these will be following me around. yes imagination can be a curse also.

have a nice day guys, and I hope none of these follow you around.

Building up the armies, and some works in progress

Well in the Northern Hemisphere its spring cleaning time, which means for me... buying time. I am currently going through what I need and what I would like. For the main part I am focussing on the Soviets! Oronegro is going to have loads! lots and lots of them. Why? Because I can and they look cool, US soldiers look professional and deadly as do most European ones but Russians look cool!

this is one of my favourite tanks, after the Leopard 2, the challenger 2

Well then what am I planning to get? 3 things currently

1. I am purchasing some second hand goods from an old friend Emmett, better known as Winttrix, he's downsizing his war-gaming collection after his big move so I am paying for the postage of a nice collection of models. :-D This I shall pay for shortly
2. I am saving up for this deal! A Dutch member of the Wargaming Guild is selling off lots of kits, I hope to buy some T-80BV's, because they look cool! and also some BM-21 Grands because my first kit was the BM-24 so it seems appropriate for some reason. I'll save up and get those.
3. another Friend also from the Netherlands, has offered to by me the Orion Chechens and their modern Russians. I got him some figures to its basically present giving! He has already given me some things but he said that he was more than willing to get the figures as well, despite my insistence that he didn't have to. ah well, I should not turn down such a kind offer, I am getting him some more figs for his Birthday anyway, also something to save up for.

 Also I will be nice and show you the Two kits my Dutch Friend sent me already, ones on the work bench (which is now actually my workbench and not the dinning room table) that is the LKW 7t. mil gl (6x6 Truck)

I needed some transport and now with this I have some :-D

The truck is proving to be a complex kit! But I shall soldier on just as the Truck itself would in the boggy muddy ground on jungle roads of Oronegro! I am also adding something not included in the kit... Crew, conversions of the Esci NATO ground crew they shall be designed to show either a sense of ease or at watch. so far only the driver is in place. I might even put a gunner in. Using the DShK included in the T-90A disaster kit as a mounted weapon, that is if the gun is not bent to buggery like the rest of the kit... we'll see. This tanks crew is looking pretty generic, which is good as the truck itself shall be also.

There is also another kit... a Tank... My Favourite tank :-D... its already named in this post... The Leopard 2 A6, what a beautiful tanks. sinister looks and a deadly armament this tank means business.

its mine... my own... my precious.

well I think this tank shall be used by the Germans but like some of the others I may paint it up without to many or any decals so it can be used by anyone. Why can't Oronegro use my favourite tank? it uses my second favourite. This shall be made once I get the truck done, but I think they shall be presented together.

well Oronegro is set to grow, with more baddies in the mix with all those lovely soviets, who of course will do good things, this is Oronegro both sides shall do good and bad, no innocence in war. And with the Good force almost complete except for some AFV's and APC's its going to get ugly once the soviets are ready for battle. Once again feel free to contact me at GJDitchburn@Gmail.com if you have any offers of second hand moderns, although I am going to make these purchases, they are basically going to be all the spending I shall make this year.

now onto the new follower... I have not had a new follower on one of my blogs for a while... greetings to Alfons Cànovas from miniaturas militares por alfons canovas welcome to this blog.

and once more have a great time guys.

Rule making progress report.

Well I have typed up my rules and they are ready to print and test. anyway I have here an option for you. I can upload the files! yes even though I have yet to test them. the fact is I don't have much time to test my rules out what with school and all. SO Here is my proposal if you wish I can upload my Ground combat or my naval combat rule sets or both for you to try if you so wish... If I do so I'll make a big thing about it here and they'll get their own post, once you've tried the rules come back here and tell me how you found them... any constructive criticism you may have or ideas, then once I alter the rules I'll delete the old copy from on-line (to save space in my google docs) and hen post the new version both here and on my blog, if people like them well we'll see what I can do next with them.

This will be my first game... a raid upon a small stock house. A second time for the unhappy Alfred Hale who has retreated here after losing a battle to the bandits the previous day now with the remainder of his soldiers he not only has to fight for his own life but for members of the Castillo family as well who were transporting goods between San Fran and La Fortuna.

I have started using my camera again, batteries might not last long but I hope the image quality is better

the bandits, their actually my pirates and sailors but fit the role well

not many men left can Alfred hold out?

well there you go lets see what I can do for you. if you even have the slightest desire to try the rules don't be shy I need to see if they are half decent also.

greetings to Michael Peterson feel free to comment at any time on the blog I hope you enjoy watching my mad ideas progress or as is usually the case not progress.

the begginings of a story

the year is 1735
on a balcony of the Mayoral Palace in La Ley stands a man richly dressed, though for all his noble attributes his wig is still in on its stand and his clothes are not properly put on. the must be in his early 20's but stands up on the balcony like an elder whose wisdom encompasses the knowledge of several generations. He is shaken his skin is pale although his complexion is usually a few shades darker than most of his fellow aristocrats. Eduardo Martínez is his name and he is Mayor of La Ley and the constitutional monarch of Oronegro. in his hands he holds a piece of parchment, scribbled with many signatures, a paragraph at the top being the only substantial bit of writing on it. But why would it need to be longer? Why should it contain more paragraphs? more words? For this is a declaration of War!...

there a sneak peak into a world of conflict. Be careful my friends for now Oronegro is at war the battles will soon come. 1735 is when this war starts though 1740 is when my story will really take place 5 years in and the war will have just gone through a small lull in the fighting.
I am showing you this so that you can begin to picture what Oronegro will be, a nation already worn down by a war many thought would never happen again, a nation which knows its oldest foe is about to re enter the fray, a nation which must now rely on its own leaders to take the field.

Eduardo Martínez remember this name! Born on the 17 March 1712 he has travelled great distances and seen many great things. His character shall be explained more once I have a fig for him ;-) but the basics must be covered... At age 16 he was elected, as is customary by the family of Juan Carlos the founder of Oronegro, to become La Ley's 9th Mayor. Incredibly young but also a genius whose social skills, good humour and military intellect are rivalled by very few and none are a match when it comes to their excellence in all points! He shall lead the armies of Oronegro in this war a war that had seen and would see Oronegro's highest and lowest points.

if I sound very proud of my little Eddie here I am, the character is named after my current Spanish teacher who is a very funny man, though I could never see him leading an army, or a country he is still a friend and I thought why not include him in my story... after all he is Spanish. (actually his father in Argentine and his mother in Anglo-Irish, it gets even more confusing but lets leave it at that... I my self am English, 1/4 sctoish, 1/8 Australian and distantly French, and I am descended from a Norman knight)

the story above will later become part of another chapter in my Oronegro blog but for now let it rest here... I have many things to get done, several armies of figs to paint (perhaps I can organise something at school, a war gaming club get some year nines to help paint the armies, its a possibility) I also have 3 boats to make; the Willow, the Laurence and the San Miguel... and let us nor forget its term time and that means homework.

SO my projects slowly venture on and my story becomes more complex. I hope your enjoying this slow but interesting story (I hope you find it interesting) and that Oronegro can one day bear witness to a miniature campaign that attracts the attention of many war gaming enthusiasts from around the world... well that is the dream I guess, whether it can be achieved is another thing entirely.

Characters; you choose who goes into the story

Now I am sitting here with my new laptop thinking about my new year of school, recovering my voice from Fridays shouting, waiting for steam to hurry up and finish downloading Napoleon Total War onto this computer (the disk installation appears to have issues with the new PC) and guess what I am once more thinking who can be added into the Oronegrean story???

As you can imagine this is not the best time to be thinking of characters but still I am mad, spontaneous and watching a download claim its got hours remaining is not so fun (using the internet is not helping but I am beyond caring, especially when the download accelerator can't speed up steam). Now onto more important matters than using up broadband, characters for Oronegro!

As you are all aware, hopefully, I have recently made some characters, Sir Alfred Hale and Rosa and her father. Now these are some nice characters that I hope will liven up Oronegro is the months to come, but a nation cannot be made up of these people alone, even once the rest of the Castillo family are ready there will still need to be more. Why is this? well one of the things I love is to have multiple characters, even in my moderns I had such figures as James.ep3, Bean Castrae Ted, Karri .C. Tuf, and Fixed. and although I painted more right before I swapped era's I still had plenty in the pipeline to be introduced.

The thing is with the 18th century I want to do more, I want to have not only characters that add to the story and the battles, Like Alfred, but also those who can tell stories in their own way, like young Rosa. Yet most of all I want to involve you my followers, I want to repay your kindness in following my somewhat erratic blogging, in honours! For those who gave models I built ships (almost wrote shops, though I did in the moderns) and although I still have many to build (finding the energy and time is hard during term time) but for people who just like to see what I do I though what about a character... They don't have to be named after you, they don't even have to have a personality like yours, you don't even need to tell me what they should be like, I will allow all of that but if you don't want to go that far I have no problems with that either.

SO what should these characters be like... Well there are a few things I would like to do; create some elite guards for Eduardo Martínez, each would be armoured in plate like the conquistadors or knights of old, each one would be a hero in his own right being the best of the best; create some aristocrats, men and women who light up the land with either their stories of noble deeds or shame it with tales of intrigue, perhaps more women to make up for all the men you have with this hobby; foreigners, merchants, explorers and travellers, people who are all moving around the nation each with their own stories and perhaps ending up in the wrong place at the wrong time; a bandit leader, a pirate leader or a master criminal, perhaps someone who for half their time decided to live it big with the high and mighty and yet when the sun goes down or the palatial doors of his mansion close to guests he becomes a man of little morality; Eduardo Martínez himself perhaps more than one fig to represent the mayor in his palace and with his people and the mayor with his soldiers at the front.

So there you have it lots of possibles but very few certainties and don't think that your restricted to these options you can always add your own characters with their own stories. YOU CAN EVEN ADD SOME ENEMY LEADERS!!!!!! I have not come up with the identity of the Kaxad emperor, the governor of Nouveau Paris, the lord of New Dunedin, the leader of the Oroblanco liberation front and even others.

So yes plenty for you to choose from, plenty you can come up with. Perhaps by reading the Colonisation and Expansion stories on the Oronegro blog you can find even more groups that could be represented by some characters. Now I cannot promise that every character you put forwards will be created, nor can I promise that those stated above will fit in with the story, I am not looking for 1000 characters even though it seems I have that many in my head... really all I can say is put forwards an idea and I'll see what I can do ;-D

Making Rules for 1/72 scale ship combat

Well I was going to do this myself but I am struggling. Making rules is something I can do... when I have an outline to expand on but from scratch is hard. I have started making some rules for what I can small scale land combat, for which I am utilizing a heavily altered version of the modern combat rules I have. I have also requested a copy of Ion's (Archduke Piccolo) rules, he says he has a machine copy :-). But for naval combat I am not even going to bother looking for rules in 1/72 scale but create my own, with help. Wind, currents and weather all play a HUGE part in naval combat and so far I have avoided them. I have come up with a formulae for the turning circle though...

A Ship's tightest possible turning circle has a radius (in normal circumstances) of half its length. however of coarse that's not the main problem the problem is the formulae which of coarse is 0.5(2π x o.25L). L= length there are of coarse several modifiers that affect the distance.

• damaged rudder x1.8
• damaged hull x1.6
• damaged rigging/sails x1.7 (unless ore/steam powered)
• streamline hull x0.7
• bulky x1.2
• over loaded x1.2
• travelling at high speed x1.5
• travelling at reasonable speed x1.2
• travelling at a slow speed x0.9
• deep draft x1.5
• shallow draft x0.8
• contrary currents x1.9
• contrary wind direction x1.8
• Wind aids turn x0.7
• current aids turn x0.8
• Ship is using ores x0.5

Note that when more than one factor is effecting the ship that the decimals are added with the factors below 1.0 having the difference between the number and 1 used (i.e 0.9 becomes -o.1). So when a ship with a normal turning circle of 50cm is affected by contrary winds but is travelling at slow speeds turns as tightly as possible the turning circle is multiplied by 1.7 so the equation to find the distance it will cover becomes o.5(2π x(50 x 1.7)) the end result is that it will cover a distance of 267 cm! this of coarse is taken off the distance the ship can cover in that turn.
But the distance covered by a ship during a turn also depends of the weather, the amount of sails and their size the ship has, and also the speed of the ship the previous turn.
Now you may be wondering what I mean by reasonable speed, high speed and slow speed... High speed is the speed a ship travels when its at full sail and the winds are favouring it. Reasonable speed is when its using more than 1/2 its possible sail power and the winds are in its favour or the ship is using full sail but the winds are not giving it full power. Normal speed is when its either using around 1/2 its sail power and the winds are favourable or when its using a greater amount of sail but the winds are not favouring it. slow speed is when the ship is either using below 1/2 its sail power or the winds are contrary. The actual speeds them selves are determined by eye, how many sails and how big they are and the shape of the ship... if its wide then its slower and if its got lots of sails and their huge its very fast :-) nice and simple.
As for ore power, well I think that the number of ores must determine its speed. what that speed is I have no idea.

But there is still so much to figure out! and of coarse there is the factor of gun on the ship. BUT all crew and guns will be affected by complementary land rules... the other ones I am making.