Triples 2014

Loki steps Down

This charity initiative has been a large focal point in my life this year, however I have reached a point in life where due to my health I have to make some tough decisions, mainly under doctors orders and against my normal character to tough things out. I dont want any sympathy as I will battle on regardless and have the strength of character to do so.

However I am unable to maintain the level of commitment that this projects needs and deal with my other responsibilities so I have to walk away from this venture, and have had to make some dramatic changes that have seen me effectively kill off my business as my health deteriorates. I will still give what support I can but I cannot continue to steer the ship in any shape or form.

I will of course honour my commitment to send out all the work to be painted once I get the outstanding figures and fulfil my obligation to base all the figures and units to give them a cohesive appearance. However this has to be the extent of my commitment.

I am disappointed that I could not see this through to the end of the year, and get it on the road, but I cant guarantee the future at the moment, and must place the needs of my family first which means taking a new career path at the very least to preserve my health.

I am sure the project will continue to grow and be supported by you all with James now heading up this project and see it through to what I hope becomes a very successful conclusion.

I wish you all every success both for now and in the future.

Regards
Loki

New Side bar logos

Thanks to the generosity of PanzerKaput, and some requests for a sidebar logo that works for those with small blog pages. He has reworked the logo and made two versions both of which are below and should work better.

A New look for the Charity

Firstly I want to say a huge thank you to Pete (Panzerkaput's painted review) who has produced some stunning artwork for the blog. Above you will see a new header he has created and in the left side bar a new advert to place on your blogs to promote the site.

For those that want to promote this venture please feel free to use this image on your blogs and create a link back to here:

I am blown away by the generosity shown by all the fellow bloggers in approaching this project and the level of commitment shown to ensure this becomes a success.

I have given the whole blog a small make over and new colour scheme that balances nicely with the new header, hopefully this makes the whole project appear a touch more professional.

Thank you - we are almost there

My thanks to all of you who responded to my last post. I believe I have now managed to sort all the confusion out and contacted you all.

I have now updated the painting log and posted it to this blog so each of you can check on the current status of the painting. If your name is not on the list please accept my apologies and send me an email so I can sort it out.

As you can see we are in need of 5 units still to be allocated, these are all small 6 figure units of Indians, so please if you can step forward and help please volunteer as we cant do this without the help and generosity from the wider community.

I have been asked several times about basing of figures and other matters, so I will clarify those points now so you have a reference.

1. Please mount the figures on some card or similar material for painting. I will be basing all the figures once they are returned. This is to maintain the unit cohesion and to give a consistent finish.

2. Please ensure your figures are at least given 1 coat of varnish before posting back, so they survive the post!

3. The deadline for all figures to be returned is no later than 7th Feb 2014 please, to give me time to base them all up.

Once again Thank you for volunteering, and good luck. I am here for help should any of you need references for painting etc.

Regards
Loki

Due to Loki's Ineptitude or just confusion and mayhem HELP NEEDED

Hello everyone Loki here, I have to put my hands up and admit something has gone very wrong in the Great Hall either by my own hand or those naughty pixies have broken into the office and ransacked the paperwork.

I have all the first phase Charity lead and have sat down today to sort out the painters and then I realised I had a problem, I knew of 9 volunteers and could only find contact details for 7 of them.

If you have not been contacted then please either message me through Google plus +Andrew Saunders or use the email address to the right, please let me know what you would like to paint the list for available units can be found HERE those marked with a ? mean that I dont have contact details.

As you can see we need a few more volunteers and regardless of your skill level we really would like you to get involved.

Thanks
Andrew ( Loki )

The Bloggers for Charity Auction Begins!

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, in a few short hours the world famous Bloggers for Charity Auction will begin. The rules are as follows:

• •  The auction will begin at 00:01 BST on Tuesday 1 October 2013 and end at 23:59 on Thursday 10 October 2013.

   

  • To qualify for participation in the auction, bidders must:

   a) be a member/follower of Bloggers for Charity.

   b) prove that they have promoted/publicised both Bloggers for Charity and the auction itself. They must include the relevant URL in their bid email for verification.

   

  • This will be a closed bidding process. Members of Bloggers for Charity may bid as often as they wish, but they will be bidding blind: no bids will be published. 

   

  • The email address to which bids must be sent is d135254l@gmail.com and marked  BfC Auction in the subject box. 

  
  

  • The highest bid at the end of the auction will be the winner and the funds can be transferred directly to Bloggers for Charity. The figures will not be dispatched until the transfer has taken place.
  
  
  There are SIX figures included in the auction lot and will all be sold as a group. They are Foundry explorer types from the Darkest Africa range, but can obviously be used with variety of rule sets from 'Bog aTen' to the new 'In Her Majesty's Name'. They are illustrated below in the popular slightly out of focus technique which has taken years to perfect:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Good luck!
  

Painters on your Marks, Get set !!

Calling all our volunteer painters, I will be collecting most of the lead for painting on Saturday at NOT DERBY from Andrew at AW Miniatures. I shall be contacting you by email on Monday or Tuesday to obtain postal addresses and check that you are still happy to undertake the painting of a unit etc..

Regards Loki

An opportunity to spend money!

Hi, Gary Amos here.

The Bloggers for Charity scheme is pretty much unique and is bound to benefit (hopefully) many people. However, I think it needs more members and, of course, more money in the old oak chest. Blunt? Yeah, I know, but I've got broad shoulders and skin like a rhino.

So, in an attempt to achieve both obvious goals, I've obtained permission from the Presidium to organise a small auction of painted figures as a test to see if it will raise more money than simply putting the figures on eBay and donating the proceeds to the blog. So why go to all this messing? Well, being a realist, I'm aware that it may not raise as much cash as an eBay auction, but it should raise awareness of Bloggers for Charity and gain more members/followers if only because they realise that the only way to get their hands on otherwise inaccessible figures without having to compete against the world is to support the blog. How? Read on.

• The auction will begin at 00:01 BST on Tuesday 1 October (2013) and end at 23:59 BST on Thursday 10 October (2013).

• In order to qualify for participation in the auction, bidders must :

         a) be a member/follower of Bloggers for Charity
          b) prove that they have promoted/publicised Bloggers for Charity and the auction itself.

• I will advise the email address to which bids must be submitted when the auction opens.

• This will be a closed bidding process. Members of Bloggers for Charity may make as many bids as they wish, but they will be bidding blind. No bids will be published (but it won't take a genius to work out how much the figures were sold for).

• The highest bid at the end of the auction period will be the winner and the funds can be transferred directly to Bloggers for Charity.

• Relax, I will pay postage.

I'll repost this information and more when the auction opens, but now, what about the figures? Well, those of you who always skip to the end of the crime thriller will have noticed a photo:

and those of you who know about such things or have a decent imagination (which lets me out) will realise that it's a useful (Foundry) adventure type for Back of Beyond, Darkest Africa or even adaptations of Necromunda There are five explorer figures in total.

O.K., reality check. If you're a bit of a chisler you'll realise instantly that you'll be competing against a pretty small group and that only some of these will bid so you might be able to get the figures for less than you might on an open auction. Fair enough, but just remember it's for a good cause and not just a raid on a charity shop. If it turns out not to be viable then it was worth trying, but that's all folks. However, if it turns out to be a success (measured in membership numbers as well as income) then I've got other stuff going spare and it's a knocking bet that others will have too - and it doesn't matter where the figures etc, are located. by the way, I'm always open to suggestions for improvements and better ideas so don't be shy.  

So, as Patrick Moore might have said, watch this space.

BfC 2015

So after the last post we had a great response, I am happy to say that I have been in contact with a great Blogger who has agreed to act as the 2015 Planning Team Leader. I felt it was better this way so the plan can be driven by one person with help from Andy and myself, in his team will be many of you bloggers who want to help but are maybe time poor or feel you lacked the know how to plan an event like this. Andy and I want as many of you as possible to feel involved, I understand that for many the painting is going to be your input but others may not want to offer their painting skills but have other aspects they can help with.
Some may think we are getting ahead of ourselves as the 2014 figures have not even been sent out but, that should give you an indication of how much planning, testing and communications have to go on before these events can get off the ground. 2014 will always be our first BfC but I firmly believe this will only get bigger and better each successive year.
As this is becoming a permanent fixture on our little area of the blogosphere and the wargames world I was wondering if we had any graphic artist out there who would be willing to look at graphics for BfC we already have our 2014 logo created by Andy but would love to see what you guys could come up with.

The Future for Blogger For Charity

While I understand you painting volunteers are still awaiting figures and effectively feel BfC is not even started. For us organizers it has been a bit like the swimming swan, calm above water while under we have been peddling furiously.... But it has been a real treat for all involved and for myself and Loki it has become a real passion.

The reaction we have been getting from the wargames industry has got the two of us thinking, why does it only have to be for one year. Loki and I have been chatting and we wanted to share a few ideas and see what you lot think.

First off I would like to say that Andy (Loki) has agreed to become the BfC Hon. Chairman and I will take the role of Treasurer/Secretary we want to see that BfC is a continuing success. The next part is where we would love some feedback.

The BfC plan will be to put on a demo game at two shows in a year (start and end) the components of the games will be painted and built by the Wargames Blogger community. A quick aside we do not expect you all to paint every year but hope you would be happy to help every now and then. After the last event each year the game components will be sold/auctioned off and the proceeds given to that years chosen charities.

So we are well on the way to 2014's game but would love to hear ideas for a 2015 game.
The planning of these games is a busy thing and as you will be aware we have been busy planning next years game this year. 2015 would need planning throughout 2014 even Andy and I think this is too much so we have come up with another proposal the BfC will need two planning teams who leap frog each other. Again we do not need a long term commitment but you may feel you would love a go at doing the BfC for one year.

We would hope that we have read the reaction of the wider community correctly and that this BfC will be well supported, Andy and I are happy to support and help any planning teams (even non Europe based, plenty of bloggers in USA or NZ, AUS)
So in summary.

Would you Support BfC ongoing?
Do you accept Andy and I as the committee?
Any Ideas for 2015?
Do you want to be part of the 2015 planning Team? (feel free to contact Andy or I privately through G+)

Thank you for your time
James and Andy

The continuing adventures of Loki

Well hopefully you have made the journey safely from my personal blog to here without any troubles. If you have come straight here then you may need to pop over to my blog for a full understanding of events so far.

So a quick recap, due to a breach of my copyright some emails have been exchanged with the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp.

This morning I received a text from James asking if a generous contribution to the projects charity fund had anything to do with me? I could only reply maybe as he made me aware of where the contribution had come from, but this was very unexpected.

So Firstly let me thank Willie and the other committee members for the generous donation received, it is greatly appreciated and does a lot for a man's faith in conducting matters in a gentlemanly way.

About half an hour later I received an email from Willie that draws a full and happy conclusion to the whole event.

Andrew,

Indeed a very gentlemanly way to resolve this unfortunate matter.

As you said, in doing so we will be able to turn this whole thing into a positive result for all parties concerned.

So it goes without saying that we would be most honoured if  Bloggers For Charity would host a game at Crisis 2014. Just let me know what you need and I'll make sure everything is ready and waiting for you.
Crisis 14 by the way is scheduled for Nov. 8th next year, at the same venue as this year.
The venue itself is extremely easy to find as, coming from whichever direction, you don't have to leave the main motorway until the last few hundred meters. Anyway, if you need any additional info such as a more detailed roadmap. the exact SatNav setting or anything else you can think of please don't hesitate to contact me.

We will also give your organisation the maximum exposure at our disposal, details of which I still have to talk through with the more technically inclined members of our committee. But for certain 'Bloggers For Charity' will be mentioned on our adverts, flyers, posters and other forms of media coverage used for the Crisis events.

But somehow we felt a little more had to be done. So I hope you won't find it presumptuous of me that I made a small contribution, on behalf of the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp, to the organisation which is obviously so close to your heart. Just consider it as a group of wargamers supporting another group for a very worthwhile cause.

In closing I can only say that, despite an inauspicious start due to our negligence, it is a real pleasure to be able to communicate with you in such a constructive way.
And I know the following is an often used platitude but in this case it couldn't be closer to the truth when I say that I'm really looking forward to see you here in Antwerp.

best regards,Willie Bogaerts
A rather eventful few days with a very rewarding outcome and a new destination for us to take the charity event to hopefully we will be able to meet many of you there as well.

I am personally delighted with the outcome as it will enable the bloggers for charity event achieve a wider audience and share this with some of those that are contributing to this as well.

The Final Selections.

I am sure many of you, will have read on blogs that we spent this last weekend play testing the proposed game for the charity event I can happily report that we have finalised the rules, the terrain layout, table size and most importantly the forces we will use for the game.

The Rules  - we very quickly decided that the rules we will use for this game will now be Black Powder. We made this decision based one the ease of play and the fact that as it was going to be a demo game we can easily track what is happening as this will be a bit larger than a skirmish game.

The Terrain Layout - through the play testing we realised that 2 ft of the table will remain unused and have therefore decided to reorganise the layout. The final table will now be made as a 6ft x 6ft , which will be constructed from 4 x 3ft square sections this should make them easily transportable.

The Forces - Sorting these out proved to be relatively easy after the first run through of the game,we knew that we had to make the forces as historically accurate as we could and a lot of research went into getting the information.

The British and Allies:
3 x 12 figure line regiments
2 x 6 figure light infantry
1 x 8 colonial rangers
1 x 12 Provincial Allies
3 x 6 Indian units
In command of these forces will be Massey and 2 officers as well as an Indian Sachem.

The French Forces:
3 x 12 figure line regiments
4 x 8 figure courer de bois
2 x 8 figure Frances Marines
5 x 6 Indians
In command of these forces will be De Ligenere, Aubery, Montigny and 2 Indian Chiefs.

In addition to all the above we will be needing some move markers, about 24 disorder markers and the same amount of dead markers.

I will now be organising the lead pile for the project and contacting the painters who have volunteered to help.

First run through with too many French line and skirmishers

First run again

Second run small units instead of skirmishers more french Marine's and courer de bois

Second Game again with more Indians on the Brit side

Council of War

Just a quick picture of the weekend gamers who nailed down the details for the Bloggers for Charity game. Full report and details will follow.

Update from the front

Just a quick post to inform you all, that we will be play testing the proposed game and a couple of versions of rules prior to dispatching any figures to be painted. The play test is scheduled for the last weekend in August. Once that is completed we will have final quantities for the figures needed and I will begin sending them out. Apologies for the delays, but we want to get the game right before we send figures out to be painted and we only want to dispatch once and in the right quantities.

Thank you all for your continued patience in this matter.
Loki

Our French Regulars

After plenty of reading around the subject I thought I would share these pictures. Most of the regulars in our battle are French Marines, the first picture is the units formal uniform which was only worn in barracks and at formal occasions. The second picture is how the same troops dressed in the French and Indian War, these guys went native and started wearing many Indian/Canadian apparel.

 

History of Quebec - Part 3 - The French Indian Alliance

here is the third part for your viewing pleasure about 7 minutes

History of Quebec - Part 2 - the first settlers

here is part two in the current series of videos.

History of Quebec - Part 1 - The Native Americans

I will be posting a series of videos, that will document the evolution of Quebec from its early beginnings through the French Indian war, American revolutionary war and beyond. Each episode is only 10 or so minutes long.

Work on the terrain ( part 2 )

The one thing the table is going to need is plenty of woods, this has led us to develop more detailed woodlands for the table but still with the ability to be auctioned off as usable terrain at the end of the day. Normally when working on a commission layout the trees e.t.c. would be an integral part of the terrain and not free standing elements as such.

The first thing worked on was developing a larger base board that would be adaptable to varying shapes, more for use after the event.

So after a few initial ideas we decided to knock up some templates. A couple of shorter wide ones that interlock and a couple of narrow but long versions. These have been textured and dry brushed up. Both of these sets will cover approx 19 inches x 12 inches each so a a good size for 28mm games.

Next up was to work on more manoeuvrable tree stands, you will have seen how I would normally do trees and woodlands on my own blog. However for a demonstration game those would not be as practical to use.
We worked out a suitable area we would need for a good show of trees and then knocked up a set of templates and cut the bases out.

I like the aesthetic look of odd numbers on a base and we settled on three per stand and 5 stands per pair of boards. this gives 15 trees to fill the space. Also we created a stand of scatter terrain to throw in if wanted.

One of the prototypes laid out for use. there are some finishing touches needed yet to complete the look fully and that will feature in another post.

A few miniatures dropped on to check the scaling of these, we have gone for a good mix of sizes and types of trees. They should make a good representation of the type of woodlands in the area. We are certainly going to be using a lot of armatures on this project, with approx 100 trees being needed.

The War that made America - The Trailer

Here is the original trailer for the 4 part series posted this week.

The War that made America - Part 4

The fourth and final instalment in the series:

New France Old England

I have been working on making our game stand out at Triples and had the idea of contacting a UK based reenactment group for the F&IW,  today I had a reply.

Hi James,

                I would definitely be up for it as I live about an hour away from Sheffield in South Derbyshire.  Please keep me in the loop and I will see if I can gather more people together.  (FYI my reenactment kit is for a French Artillery officer so will try and get some redcoats and canadians etc)
Cheers

Will

 I have added a few pictures of the group but recomend you pop over to their web site and check them out, I am so happy to have them aboard and it will make us stand out and frankly be so much fun.

The War that made America - Part 3

Today see the third instalment of this series. Again time to make a well earned cuppa and sit back for an hour.

The War that made America - Part 2

Continuing with the series of posts started yesterday on the History of the French Indian war, today we have  Part 2:

Put the Kettle on and get your feet up for another hours entertainment.

The War that made America - Part 1

This is the first of a 4 part series that gives a history of the French Indian war and the conflicts of the period. Each part is approximately 1 hour so grab a cuppa and enjoy !

A look at the new Figures from AW Miniatures

I went up to Phalanx today and met up with Loki, together after a great progress meeting over a cup of tea we wondered over to see Andy at AW Miniatures. Andy has been very busy sculpting figures so we can have all the troop types we wanted in our game, he had brought along the latest greens for us to drool over and believe me these are stunning. I took the chance to take a load of pictures so you can enjoy them yourselves.

I think you will all agree this boy has talent, and I know all you painters will be dying to get your brushes on these, will not be long now. Remember good things come to those that wait.
Peace James

French Commander de Lignery

François-Marie Le Marchand de Lignery (24 August 1703 – 29 July 1759) was a colonial military leader in the French province of Canada. Active in the defense of New France during the French and Indian War, he died of wounds sustained in the 1759 Battle of La Belle-Famille.

Born into a military family (his father was Constant le Marchand de Lignery, an officer of the French colonial military) in Montreal, Lignery enrolled as a cadet in the troupes de la marine at 14, and first saw service in 1728 during the Fox Wars. He also saw service in the Chickasaw Wars and King George's War, where he participated in attacks on Fort Anne and Grand Pré. In 1751 he was promoted to captain.

When the French and Indian War broke out, Lignery played an important role in the French defense of the Ohio Country. He distinguished himself in the defeat of Braddock in 1755, in which his company held the French center while Indians and Canadian militia were rallied early in the battle.^[  For his role in the battle he was awarded the Cross of Saint Louis. Given military command of the entire Ohio Country in 1756, he used Fort Duquesne as a base from which to harass British colonial positions in Virginia and Pennsylvania. In 1758 he captured much of a British force led by James Grant that attempted to take Fort Duquesne. Unfortunately, a force he sent out to counterattack the advancing troops of John Forbes was repulsed, and he decided in November 1758 to abandon and destroy Duquesne when it became clear that Forbes' force significantly outnumbered his.

Lignery retreated to Fort Machault, from which he continued to direct harassing raids against the British in 1759. He was organizing an expedition against Fort Pitt (the fort built by the British on the site of Fort Duquesne) when he received an appeal for help from Pierre Pouchot, the commander at Fort Niagara. Pouchot had sent Lignery some troops, but was himself now under siege by the British and requested assistance. Lignery, who was trying to convince nearly 1,000 Indians to join in the attack on Fort Pitt at the time, convinced 500 to join his force of 800 Troupes de la marine:

“”The Troupes de la Marine (Troops of the Navy), also known as independent companies of the navy and colonial regulars, were under the authority of the French Minister of Marine, who was also responsible for the French navy, overseas trade, and French colonies. They were the only regular soldiers in New France from 1682 to 1755, when several army battalions were dispatched to North America.””

 On June 24 his force was ambushed by the British as it neared Fort Niagara. The battle was a disaster for the French, and Lignery was seriously wounded and captured. Pouchot surrendered Niagara the next day, and Lignery died of his wounds on June 28.