Flag of South Melbourne

I couldn't find a flag of South Melbourne online, so decided to make one in Photoshop. It only took about 30 minutes to create.

It's based on the coat of arms:

Which I found on the Heraldry of the World wiki here: https://www.heraldry-wiki.com/heraldrywiki/index.php/South_Melbourne.

In heraldry terms it's Gules, on a Fess between in chief a repre­ sentation of the Constellation of the Southern Cross, with five Stars, and in base a Lymphad, sail set, Pennon and Flags flying, Argent, two Mullets Gules. In plain English it's a red field with a white stripe with the Southern Cross on top and a galley (from Scottish heraldry) with full sails below. There are two red stars on the white stripe.

The arms were granted on 3 February 1967. The shield is based on earlier arms assumed by the City of Melbourne, with a colour change from black and gold to red and white, the colours of both the city and its former Australian rules football team, the South Melbourne Football Club (known now as the Sydney Swans). The Southern Cross is drawn from the State arms and flag badge, its position above the white bar indicating that the City is south of the capital, Melbourne. The ship presents the sea, southern boundary of the municipality, with its facilities for swimming and water sports.

I used the ratio of the flag of Victoria, 2:1, and the flag of Denmark for the ratio of the stripe horizontally. The red is based of the red in the Union Jack. The stars are evenly spaced about a third of the width of the flag apart.

I'll use it for a faction in Brutal or A Right Bloody Mess (ARBM) gaming.

Conquest of Paradise with Crumble

Conquest of Paradise again, this time with Nic, Jack and Ruby. And again I experienced a completely different game (don’t worry Ara, you’re still the potato master). This was probably due to new players or players trying out different tactics (including myself when I was presented with a lucky opportunity).

Nic (red playing pieces) was Tonga, Jack (yellow) Samoa, Ruby (green) Hiva (the Marquesas islands),  and I (white) Raiatea (the West Society Islands) as our home islands.

We all explored away from our opponents, and a few turns in I had discovered Aotearoa (New Zealand). I had kept the other two islands (Hawaiki and Tuamotu) hidden away from prying eyes (call me Doctor No). Ruby kept picking open ocean chits, and so was surely eyeing my islands.

Ara (who couldn't make it) asked if there much conflict this time or if passengers hoyed out of the transport wakas and left to fend for themselves in shark-infested waters. There were only two battles, both between Nic “The Hammer” and “Money Bags” Jack. This occurred just before Jack was set up to take on the Mosquito Islands (the western part of the map), but Nic put stop to that. Though unfortunately Nic brought a canoe to a stick fight. And an amazing shaman. The battles were largely inconclusive (though they did drag Jack back from his lead).

Some of us tried (unsuccessfully) to get to South America and find the kumaras (sweet potatos) while Charlie deftly navigated the board. Ruby created a fleet of canoes (easy to bluff your opponents with a what appears to be a huge forces when canoes only cost 1 Build Point). Near the end of the game she was too nice and decided not to place the Typhoon event card in our midst. Big mistake, as her canoes were over a heap of atolls and she was close to winning (in the end I won as I held a small region of high yield islands, including Aotearoa far away from the others). I had also gained the Wood Carving card that was worth 2 Victory Points as I also held a Mythical Island (Hawaiki), giving me 24 (of the 22) Victory Points needed.

What was sweeter though was Nic's delicious apple and pear crumble with walnuts and almonds. I'm sure to be playing this game again.

Last Game I Played - Junta

Nigel invited people over for a board game day. What's the game seven friends play when they want to play Diplomacy but know that once was enough? Junta!

If you don't know Junta, it's in my top 10 (but then again, I don't play many board games). But it's been around since 1978, so it must be good:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/242/junta

I ended up as president early on, which I'm not a fan of, but then I managed to get myself a massive voting block:

Along with one other player who was also lucky enough to be dealt a good hand we were able to create a super voting block. Combined we were however incompetent (we were role-playing the personalities of the Republica de los Bananas, honest!). Coup after coup, after coup. After coup, followed.

I eventually lost the peasant and my ally was shot after a coup (I was sunning myself on a beach in Mexico somewhere).

Needless to say I didn't win, being too honest (the game encourages you to lie). Great fun though.

Medium Mark A Whippet and WWI British Tank Crew

I have a list of my painting goals for 2019 (see here) and it was filled with "anything that's shiny and distracts me". This is one of those shiny things.

While I have a load of 28mm late WWI Germans / Freikorps to paint, I decided after the Foch game a few months ago to paint the Whippet tank and British tank crew I had instead. Mainly as a test to see how WWI would paint up and that this was a self contained project.

The tank (picked up in early 2014) is from 1st Corps and is a lovely piece - nice chunky detail in the resin hull while also having fine white metal details in the four machine guns. It got a quick coat of Vallejo US field drab (70.783) with yellow ochre (70.913) mixed in for the highlights. Then gunmetal (70.863) for the tracks along with white (70.951) and flat red (70.957) for the markings. Then plenty of black and brown washes to weather it.

I am still planning on writing or painting on the front panel, as I am intrigued by the story of "Musical Box":

http://overlord-wot.blogspot.com/2013/07/black-box.html
https://stevesmith1944.wordpress.com/2018/08/08/musical-box-writing-a-wrong/

Every tank needs a crew, and I got these Old Glory Miniatures sculpts from the second hand stall at Cancon last year, with the tank corps staff officer being from Warlord Games' British LDV section set. The first are more than a little ropey, but good enough.

Colours used for the uniform was and base of Vallejo brown violet (70.882) highlighted (heavily) with English uniform (70.921). The helmets were brown violet (70.882) with yellow ochre (70.913) mixed in for the highlights and the gasmask bags were stone grey (70.884) with white (70.951) mixed in for the highlights.

While I could've spent more time with shading and highlights, I think WWI miniatures can be a little more unpolished to reflect the subject.

I have since started painting the early war Belgians I have and thinking about how I want to paint the late war Germans. The former may be a little cleaner, but the Germans will probably get the same treatment as these British.

Tusk (Mammoth Hunting) in 15mm

When I first started wargaming again in 2005, I started by playing Flames of War. This was my first foray into 15mm and I fell in love with the versatility of the scale. DBA soon followed, and I picked up Irregular Miniatures' Tusk rules and miniatures; purely for the quirkiness factor.

They were left unpainted for a few years, but by 2010 I had painted the six mammoths (two of them calves), two woolly rhinos and 16 cavemen for Little Wars that year where I ran a few participation games.

The mammoths got a bit of extra fur (courtesy of Green Stuff) to cover their seam line along their backs, but they were pretty easy to paint (and actually not bad sculpts). The characterful woolly rhinos being from Eureka Miniatures' 10mm fantasy range.

A week or so ago I decided to add to this collection with some more 10mm miniatures from Eureka Miniatures with some deer and lions (which could double as sabre-toothed cats). To give an idea of their scale, I based them on 19 x 25mm bases while the mammoths and woolly rhinos are on 30 x 40mm bases.

When I primed these (with some 15mm Napoleonic uhlans and medieval Malays) I wasn't planning on painting them, but I thought "when are you going to paint these?". So I painted them then. It ended up being a quicker process than I thought, taking less than an hour. I love the result of a quick dry brush with some highlights/detail, being surprised how well they turned out.

The colour palette used was limited, only using Vallejo black (70.950), white (70.951), US field drab (70.783) and yellow ochre (70.913). I mixed a grey for the antlers and shades of the two colours with the black and white. I also painted the bases with yellow ochre, but when I was done I think the original bases were painted with another colour I used back then. So I'll have to redo the edges at some point. Will probably use the craft paint raw umber to keep things simple (which I use for all my non-desert and non-snow bases).

Edit (31 August 2019): I have painted the edges raw umber on the five adult mammoths, two baby mammoths, two woolly rhinos, three deer, three lions, four dogs and 16 cavemen. It always feels good to complete a project.