Sengoku Period Japan

I’ve started with a range of designed for use on the various banners and standards used by Japanese troops in the late Sengoku period, roughly 1550-1615. They’re aimed at people doing skirmish wargaming using 28mm figures. The range now includes 80 different designs and you can see the full range here. .

Fantasy

I do a small range of decals for fantasy wargamers focussing on Undead Samurai and forces for Middle Earth wargamers, with inspiration coming more from the original books rather than the more recent films.

Custom Decals

I also offer a custom design and printing service. If there’s a specific symbol you’d like to see on a decal please get in touch. We can discuss your requirements and I’ll give you a quote for what you want. The price for such custom work depends on the design time involved and could be less than you may think. A small change to a decal I already produce, such as adding a ring round one of my samurai mons, would be free for example. And if you come up with an idea I like, and that I think would be a good seller, the cost would be minimal or perhaps even zero.

Decal sizes and colours

I can print any of my decals in just about any size you like up. Colour can be complicated as my printer is not capable of printing white, I discuss the workaround I use for this here.

The number of decals fitting on a sheet depends on their size. For guidance you get just over 200 6mm circular decals on one of these sheet.

Buying the Decals

Cost is £5 for a 90mm x 130mm sheet containing a single size of decal. Postage is charged at cost, £1.35 in the UK and £2.50 elsewhere in the world for an order of any size.

To buy send me an email and we can discuss your requirements. Once we’ve worked out what you require I’ll send you a PayPal invoice.

Please ask for a quote if you want a decal sheet with mixed sizes and/or designs on it, I don’t charge for the first extra size on a sheet, so there’s no extra charge if you want a few decals for standards along with others for shields for example.

Contact

Contact me at dereksweetoys@gmail.com

2022 was a busy year for gaming, I fitted in 101 miniatures games in the course of the year and 36 boardgames. Building a permanent table in my study has certainly given me extra opportunities to play. Games were as follows.

Miniatures Games Played (total for year 101 games)

31 x Warcry.
10 x Congo.
9 x Test of Honour.
7 x Stargrave.
6 x Border Wars.
5 x Et Sans Resultat.
4 x Sharp Practice, Star Wars Legion, Xenos Rampant.
3 x Infamy!, Oathmark.
2 x Mortal Gods Mythic, O Group, Strength & Honour.
1: x AWI, Bonsai Bonkers, Chain of Comman, Dux Brit, Galactic Heroes, Men Who Would Be Kings, Pony Wars, Saga, What a Tanker!

That’s a lot of variety, but there seems to have been an emphasis on skirmish games, with more than half the games I played falling into that category.

Boardgames Played (total for year 36 games)

5 x Memoire ’44, Ticket to Ride
4 x Kingdom Death Monsters, Zombicide.
3 x Dark Tower, Horrified,  Massive Darkness, Pandemic.
1 x Judge Dredd Helter Skelter, Lords of Waterdeep, Scooby Doo, Sniper Elite’ Splendor, Star Saga            

Planned Painting

2,326 in the TooFatLardies Painting Challenge 2022, a respectable score but slightly less than last year.

Infamy! Infamy!: My painting objectives for 2022 included expanding my Punic Wars forces for Infamy! Infamy! and I now have extensive Roman and Carthaginian options.

Test of Honour: I finally completed my Sohei and Ikko Ikki, forces for use in Test of Honour.

Warcry: Untamed Beasts, Thunderstrikee Stormcast and Flesheater Courts. The Untamed Beast are currently my favourite warband and saw extensive use throughout the year.

Science Fiction: Plans to expand my forces for Stargrave were more than fulfilled when I went a bit daft and churned out almost a hundred generic science fiction troops that I can use in both Stagrave and the new Xenos Rampant rules from Osprey.

Border Wars: As predicted I got into the Border Wars skirmish game from Flags of War and .have put together two forces.

Undead: Vampires, Revenants, Skeletons and an Undead Dragon to expand my already massive fantasy undead forces.   

Unexpected Diversions

Star Wars: I’ve been a Star Wars fan for years and finally cracked and bought into the Star Wars Legion game. I painted up a load of Imperial Stormtroopes and supporting troops. Played Legion four times and then decided that I’d rather use the toys in Xenos Rampant. Then I painted up some Rebels

Congo: One of my usual playing partners has always wated to try the Congo skirmish game and a bargain at the Bring & Buy at Claymore 2022 saw me pick up the rules and a bunch of models at a bargain price. This was just a start and I now have extensive forces for all four of the Coluns in the rules.

Scenery – Printing and Painting

Three main projects this year, science fiction terrain in the style of the Battle of Scarif in the film Rogue One, a four foot stretch of Samurai castle walls and a small Ferrmtoun for Border Wars.

I’m going to be ambitious this year and aim for 100 gaming sessions, including at least 52 involving miniatures. I’m on target so far with nine sessions in January.

Deep Fried Lard, a day of games from the TooFatLardies stable, is scheduled at Musselburgh Rugby Club Saturday June 18th, 2022. It’s looking hopeful that the recent improvements in the Covid situation will mean it can go ahead. I’ve really missed not running it for the past two years.

Infamy! Infamy! – I’m in the playtest group for the Punic Wars supplement but Covid restrictions have meant I’ve only been able to play one game. Hopefully I’ll get a few in this year.

‘O’ Group: I enjoyed seven games of ‘O’ Group last year, but I’ve not yet played with any of my early war forces featured in the ‘O’ Group 1940 supplement. I definitely want to play a few early-war games, they should be quite different from the late-war ones we’ve played so far.

Oathmark – I’ve got the forces assembled and the sabots printed, but I’ve only played one game so far. I hope to get a few in this year.

Warcry – I’ve become a big fan of this fantasy skirmish game from Games Workshop. I’ve played nine games of it so far this year and planning on more. It’s great fun and, while the the rules are really easy to learn, the tactics demand a lot of thought.

Painting – Addressing the Lead & Plastic Mountain

It’s not a “Pile of Shame”, it’s a “Pile of Opportunity”.

Punic Wars: I’ve already painted Republican Roman, Gallic and Carthaginian forces for force for the promised Punic Wars supplement for Infamy, Infamy! I’d like to expand the Romans with a few more stands of Principes and Triari and the Carthaginians could do with some cavalry and an Elephant. I’ve already got some Numidian allies for them. I could be tempted into starting a force of Iberians, and if Wargames Atlantic release their promised Thureophoroi, I will start on a Hellenistic force.

Warcry – As seems to be usual I’ve only got round to writing this post in February and I’ve already achieved one of my objectives in January. The three Warcry warbands I’ve already painted this year get me to a point where I now have access to nine different warbands, two of which belong to my son. That’s enough to be going on with at the moment, though there’s another warband of Orcs (Kruelboyz this time) waiting to be painted and I am planning on getting a few figures that will give me more options for the existing warbands.

Samurai I bought a load of Sohei monk figures over a year ago and if I get them painted I will have new Test of Honour forces for Sohei and for Ikko Ikki. That’s the plan,

Undead Samurai – I’ve still not yet painted any of the figures I got from last year’s Zenit Miniatures Kickstarter.

Mortal Gods Mythic: I really must paint the Hydra from the Kickstarter.

Stargrave: I want to complete a few bits and bobs for Stargrave, in particular some undead types for the Quarantine 37 campaign.

Painting – Expected Temptations.

Punic Wars: I could easily be tempted to starting a force of Iberians, and if Wargames Atlantic release their promised Thureophoroi, who seem to me to be the most suitable Hellenic infantry to use for the types of skirmish covered by Infamy, Infamy!, I will probably start on a Hellenic force.

Mortal Gods Mythic: Footsore promised us more toys for this game last year, including Cerebus for the Hades forces. Trish Carden has been doing some lovely monster sculpts for this range so, when they’re finally released, I’ll be getting Cerebus and anything else they do for Hades.

Fantasy: I’m still waiting for Wargames Atlantic to release their promised Skeleton Cavalry sometime soon and if they’re anything like their Skeleton Warrior infantry, which I love, I’ll be completely unable to resist buying a couple of boxes. Games Workshop are going to re-release their Warhammer Quest: Cursed City, a game set in a city taken over by undead types. It comes with a dozens of figures that I can use to expand my existing undead forces for multiple games and the chance of me resisting temptation is zero.

Scenery – Printing and Painting

I bought an Ender 2 3D printer last year and have been churning out scenery, bases and sabots with it since November. My plan for the year is to get a load of the scenery painted and ready for use. So far I’ve been much better at printing than painting.

Test of Honour – I’m a big fan of the 3D files for Japanese scenery coming from from 3D Alien Worlds and I’m planning on some fairly major additions to my Test of Honour scenery. I’ve already finished the farm clutter and wooden walls seen in the picture below and I’ve got some more wooden walls and a complete Teahouse printed and waiting to be finished. I’d love to do one of their Samurai Castles, but that’s a huge project and I think I’ll just start with some stone a section of castle walls with a corner tower and perhaps a gatetower . I’ve been searching for a good Samurai house for a while, but haven’t found anything that I really like. My current plan is to get the mdf Samurai House from Sarissa Precision and improve it with a 3D roof using Rooftile Panels from 3D Alien Worlds

Fantasy and Science Fiction – Already printed I have a lot of scenery for Stargrave and I’ve started on a project to put together an extensive Necropolis with lots of mausoleums etc for my undead hordes to inhabit. I really must get painting scenery rather than just printing it.

New Games

Border Wars – Iain McDonald of Flags of War and Funky Skull Games has almost finished a set of skirmish rules and accompanying figures for fighting in the period of the infamous Border Reivers. From what I’ve seen of the rules and figures they look to be an absolute must for any Scottish historical miniature gamer. Border Wars should be coming to Kickstarter later in the year.

Strength and Honour – I’m also really looking forward to the Strength and Honour rules coming from the Reisswitz Press and have already put together two forces in 2mm for this big battle game of ancient warfare.

Derek’s Wee Decals

I plan on expanding my Samurai range of decals and have other products planned, including some decals for what I’m calling “Classic Fantasy” and some stl files for sabots. I’m also working on producing samurai decals for 6mm figures but it’s a lot more difficult than I thought for me to get them looking good on figures that small.

Reading over all that I think I’m being rather ambitious.

I’ve played more games with my Nighthaunt than I have with any other warband, they’re very mobile and fun to play, but they’re a bit lacking in hitting power.

The Flesh-eater Courts warband have two big hitting flyers, with support from a load of Ghoulish chaff.

The Legions of Nagash have been rewritten as Soulblight Gravelords since I put together this warband and they’ll soon be getting some Vampire reinforcements from the updated list.

I converted these these Bonereapers to give them some samurai/ashigaru looks before I bought Warcry. I’ve still to use them in a game, but they’re ready and waiting.

Only just finished today I have two different Untamed Beasts warbands with different playing styles. The first one is as they come out of the box, the other combines heavy hitters with lots of weak fighters to run interference.

Another recent edition coming from a bargain buy of the Dominion boxset – four Warbands for £50. Two bands of Stormcast and two of Kruelboyz waiting to be painted.

Half the Ironjawz were painted by my son but I have them on loan. The Goblins in the warband below are all his.

The bad news is that there are a few problems.

A few people have seen pictures of my models on social media and have aske me how I do my bases. Well I do it as outlined below.

For my 28mm infantry figures I’ve standardised on circular bases, usually 20mm for historical models and 25mm for fantasy. I’ve found this gives me a huge amount of flexibility in how I can use them. Individually on their circles for skirmish games, or on sabots when using them for games using groups of figures. I’ve also got a number of adapters which enable me to turn circles into squares or cavalry pill bases into rectangles. Some of these I’ve 3D printed myself, others come from some of the mdf base makers.

The size and shape you use for your bases is important, it’s possible to make a small base bigger, using sabots or adapters, but making a big base smaller requires cutting or rebasing. In my opinion circles look much better than squares in skirmish games and circles make it easy to rank figures up on multi-bases as you can turn them to different angles, unlike figures on square bases which can only face in one four directions.

I’ve discussed why I prefer using mdf bases rather than ferrous coins or washers in a previous post here on Derek’s Wee Toys.

How I paint and texture my bases

Here’s the basic steps I use

1. Glue the figures on to their bases.
2. Use filler to level things out (if necessary)
3. Paint the whole base
4. Texture the base
5. Add static grass and tufts to decorate the base.

1 – Figure glued on base

2 – Level with filler

3 – Paint the base

4 – Texture the base

I use two types of texture on my bases, both of which I bought at pet shops. I know you can get sand etc for free but the materials I’ve bought from pets shops wass not exactly expensive and it’s all washed and sterilised.

For my main texture I use budgie grit.

To add a bit more texture I use this a few pieces of this gravel that’s sold for use in fish tanks (or perhaps lizard tanks I can’t remember). I like the effect that comes from the various colours.

I use this basing procedure for the vast majority of my models, the main exception being the science fiction models I’m using for Stargrave which I have put on grey bases, a lot of the games are set inside space-ships. I prefer grey bases for them. The procedure I use for them is similar, but I use just the the budgie grit to get my texture (no added gravel) and set it onto the base using a grey paint/PVA/water mix. When thats dried I paint over the textured base with the same grey if necessary. This gives the results seen in the picture below.

Games Played

My target was one game a week in 2020, though Covid restrictions ensured I got off to a very slow start and I had only played four games by the end of March. But once restrictions started being eased in April I was off and running. It’s been a record breaking year as I have been gaming at least twice a week (more usually three or four times) since May. I’ve continued to play my usual miniatures games but have also started a weekly board-games session with a long-time friend. We managed 22 board-gaming sessions in 2021, some of more than one game.

Miniatures Games Played (total for year 64 sessions)

• 13 x Sharp Practice
• 10 x Test of Honour
• 7 x ‘O’ Group
• 7 x Warcry
• 5 x Infamy Infamy!
• 5 x Mortal Gods
• 4 x Mortal Gods Mythic
• 3 x Chain Of Command
• 3 x Fistful of Lead
• 3 x Stargrave
• 1 x Oathmark
• 1 x Men Who Would Be Kings

That’s a record for me. There’s a strong showing for fantasy games with Warcry and Mortal Gods Mythic, but my most played game was Sharp Practice for the second year running.

Board Games Played (total for year 22 sessions)

• 5 x Marvel Unlimited
• 4 x Monster Slaughter
• 4 x Super Fantasy Brawl
• 3 x Massmora
• 2 x Nexus Ops
• 2 x Ticket to Ride
• 1 x King of Tokyo
• 1 x Nemesis

Planned Painting

With 2,468 points in the TooFatLardies Painting Challenge 2021 I painted more in 2021 than I have any year in decades, easily beating my target of 2,000.

Infamy, Infamy! My main aim for the year was to get forces together for use in the Punic Wars testing of Infamy, Infamy from TooFatLardies. During a slightly mad February I completed a force of over 100 Gauls, who will be able to fight against the Romans on their own or act as support for the Carthaginian force I put together in March. In April I painted a small force of Numidians while later in the year I expanded the Gauls and put together a force of Caesarian Romans, who can fight the Gauls or have them as Allies. I’m now well sorted for Infamy

Test of Honour:  Another aim for 2021 was to expand my forces for Test of Honour. I with thiss, but not by much by t painting up the peasant types necessary for my planned Ikko-Ikki force. I still need to do a few hero types.

Oathmark:  No painting and only a single game. But I did design and print prototypes of for a sabot system which I will use in my planned Human/Undead Oathmark army. The humans all come from my Gw?r y Gogledd force for Dux Britanniarum. .

More Warbands

I’m still having fun putting together small forces for skirmish games, This year I’ve done Ossiarch Bonereapers and Undead Samurai. for fantasy and Nurgle Space Marines, Undead Space Marines, Robots and Belters for SF games.

Scenery

Not a lot of scenery finished this year, some samurai walls and scatter terrain and a rather nice Spanish windmill from Charlie Foxtrot Models.

Incomplete Plans

My Hydra is still sitting in it’s undercoat. And that’s about it.

3D Printing

I’ve had mixed experience with my introduction to 3D printing and it’s been very frustrating at times, I’ll write about it more fully elsewhere, though I must say I’m getting on with the Ender 3 v2 a lot better than I am with the the Elegoo Mars resin printer.

I did manage to print and paint two forces using stl files for 2mm miniatures from Project Wargaming. I now have Romans and Gallic armies for the Strength and Honour big battle rules due soon from Reisswitz Press and I’ve printed a load of scenery, most of which has not yet been painted. I intend to rectify that soon.

All in all it’s been a highly productive year.

One of the good things that comes from spending fifty plus years in the wargaming hobby is that you build reserves of toys which you can repurpose and use with new games. So when I found out about Joseph McCullough’s new fantasy rank and flank battle game, Oathmark, I knew I already had hundreds of painted models, mostly humans and undead, that could use for it.

But I had a problem, my fantasy model basing is all over the place. Just take a look at the picture below to see what I mean, that’s twelve different types of base I have used on various fantasy figures (or historical figures I want to use in Oathmark).

A job for sabots if ever there was one. In the past I’ve commissioned mdf sabots from makers such as Supreme Littleness Designs or Warbases. I’ve also paid to have my own designs cut a process that can be rather frustrating due to the need to wait for prototypes etc.

But my recent purchase of an Ender 3 v3 FDM printer gave me the opportunity to develop and make Oathmark sabots by myself. I’m really enjoying being able to turn my design ideas into prototypes in hours rather than having to wait days while someone else produces them.

Here’s what I’ve come up with for my Oathmark sabots. All of them are designed by myself and printed on an Ender 3 v2 FDM 3D printer. The wavy edge to the bases is a design decision as I’ve written about in an earlier article, I really don’t like big blocky sabots and the wavy edges really help to break up that look.

Those eight sabots cover all my bases, I now have to get together variants to fit the different unit sizes allowed in Oathmark. They are all 135mm wide, 10cm wider than the 25mm frontage per figure specified in Oathmark and I am told that is the same size as some of the plastic sabots/movement trays supplied by Renedra. That’s just over the absolute minimum size I could have used given I wanted to have sabots fitting 2p pieces.

And here they are painted and textured.

The room is just too small to take a permanent standard 6′ x 4′ table so I decided to go with a 4′ x 4′ with a 2′ x 4′ extension. I wanted storage room underneath the table and Isabella came up with the idea of using Kallax storage units from Ikea as a base for the table with a custom built top. See below for pictures of what I have built.

My Cunning Plan

My Shopping List

Ikea

• 3 x Kallax Shelving unit, 77×77 cm
• 1 x Kallax Shelving unit, 77×42 cm
• 1 x Olov adjustable legs

B&Q

• 8′ x 4′ (2.44m x 1.22m) sheet of 5mm ply cut down to give me 4′ x 4′ and 4′ x 2′ pieces
• 46mm x 25mm pine stripwood
• 46mm x 15mm pine stripwood
• Hinges
• Door Stops

Excuse the strange mix of metric and imperial measures, it’s the way DIY materials are sold in the UK.

Details

It has to be said that this is certainly not the cheapest way of doing things, all that Kallax costs quite a lot. But the table works very well in the room available and the Kallax gives me a huge amount of extra storage space.

The new decals are shown in the picture above, as usual they’re all available in multiple sizes and colours.

• Top row left to right- a hanabishi as used on some Takeda banners, notably the personal banners of Takeda Shingen ; a hanabishi in a circle as used by the Got? clan; crossed kama (sickles) as used by the Kobayakawa clan: a rather unusual symbol used on the banners of Anayama Nobutada; the kanji “hachi” as used by the Yokota clan.
• Bottom row left to right – a omodaka (water plantain) as used by the troops of Oyamada clan; a disc in a crescent as used by the troops of Obu Toramasa; an open octagon as used by troops of Obata Masimori (aka Obata Nobusada); a crescent as used by the troops of Itagaki Nobu; nine stars as used by Kosaka Masanobu.

I’ve been focusing on the Battle of Nagashio recently and there’s symbols used by seven of Takeda Shingen’s Twenty Four Generals in there.