Castle Aching

[Nearholmer]

Would it be open to misinterpretation if I said: “There’s life in the old dog yet.”?

[Edwardian]

Hello.

 

I don't want you chaps to be cross, or, worse, disappointed, but I have had a few months of being unwell. Walking Hadrian's Wall was probably not an adequate alternative to steriods and various other pills and inhalers that are getting me back to normal. This means that for sometime I have had shorter days with less physical and mental energy. I have struggled to keep up with work and family committments.

 

Now, though, as I return to normal, I have found inspiration and am easing my way back into model making but not, as yet, returing to railways. I looked at my neglected wargames stash and decided that what I needed most in my life was a Mediaeval town ....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Compound2632]

Glad to see you posting again - all the best for your return to health.

 

What scale is that? Looks like it could be a good stand-in for Birchoverham.

[Edwardian]

18 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Glad to see you posting again - all the best for your return to health.

 

What scale is that? Looks like it could be a good stand-in for Birchoverham.

 

Thanks

 

28mm in wargames speak, so circa 1/56

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

28mm in wargames speak, so circa 1/56

 

Ok a bit big. That 28 mm refers to the typical figure height, I think? At 1:56, that's only just over 5 ft.

[Nearholmer]

The medieval town I very much like the look of.

 

The first syllable of “wargames” bothers me slightly though; something to do with reading the news too often, I think.

 

Were there no brief moments of peace, good harvests, decent weather, relative prosperity, and wise, benign governance, during which the peasants and tradespeople could go about their daily lives free from the threat of arbitrary violence and destruction of property, if not those of intestinal parasites and appalling diseases, during medieval times?

 

I ask, because it might be rather nice if you could model such a time, rather than a war. More soothing. Fully respecting Rule 1, of course, assuming that applies as much to wargames as to playing trains.

 

 

[nick_bastable]

village designed by Lima then, great to see you back

 

 

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

The medieval town I very much like the look of.

 

The first syllable of “wargames” bothers me slightly though; something to do with reading the news too often, I think.

 

Were there no brief moments of peace, good harvests, decent weather, relative prosperity, and wise, benign governance, during which the peasants and tradespeople could go about their daily lives free from the threat of arbitrary violence and destruction of property, if not those of intestinal parasites and appalling diseases, during medieval times?

 

I ask, because it might be rather nice if you could model such a time, rather than a war. More soothing. Fully respecting Rule 1, of course, assuming that applies as much to wargames as to playing trains.

 

 

 

Well, they are buildings designed for wargamers in a wargames scale, but essentially it's like a big diorama and, of course, the townspeople will be peaceable enough.

 

I've been reading up on the Middle Ages lately. As an undergrad it was all political history of the period, so now I'm getting more of a look and feel of daily life.

 

The setting for the model is fourteenth century England 'at a different point in imagination' to borrow from Tolkien.

Edited October 15, 2023 by Edwardian

[Nearholmer]

Maybe I need to see if there’s a market for 28mm scale interbellumgame figures. 

[Nearholmer]

This made me laugh:

 

“The Truce of God, first proclaimed in 1027 at the Council of Toulouges, attempted to limit the days of the week and times of year that the nobility engaged in violence”

 

 

[Schooner]

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Walking Hadrian's Wall

Advertised as kill or cure, can only applaud the decision to avoid either extreme.

 

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

decided that what I needed most in my life was a Mediaeval town

Equally laudable.

 

Good to see you, and hear of a return to energy enough for the essentials and the enjoyables. Important :)

[Johnson044]

Good to see you fighting back, Edwardian and I hope your health and fitness improve rapidly. Walking is the absolute cure- I really maintain this- but with our busy lives a decent long distance walk  seems like an impossible dream sometimes. Have you read The Salt Path b y Raynor Winn?

 

https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-salt-path/raynor-winn/9781405937184

 

 

[Northroader]

Glad to see some creative jobs starting to appear again in your life, good luck with the way it’s going.

[16Brunel]

Good to have you back, James!  And 5.5mm to the foot scale is 1:55.4 - just sayin'...

 

- Scott

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, 16Brunel said:

Good to have you back, James!  And 5.5mm to the foot scale is 1:55.4 - just sayin'...

 

Still short of stature for 28 mm figures. But I had failed to equate this scale to the scale used by Peco and others at one time (and maybe still) for models of 3 ft gauge railways on 16.5 mm gauge track. Makes that seem mildly more practicable if one has the whole of 28 mm gaming to draw on for figures, structures, wheelbarrows, etc.  

[Northroader]

Where’s me calculator gone in the move.? 3/16” x 6’ is, er, an inch and an eighth, which is, durh, about 28mm, so that means you got proper size figures for S scale? Although that’s supposed to be 1:64 scale, and this ere war games is 1:55?

and then you go round a model show, and if there’s an S scale job there, it hits you that it’s just perfection, think, ooh, er,..

http://www.s-scale.org.uk/gallery.htm

so really, you’re on a winner, me old mate.

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Aren’t wargames figures measured to the eyes, rather than the top of the head? I vaguely recall Edwardian telling us that before.

[Johnson044]

Any scope for some Jack Nelson style perspective modelling with 1:55 in the foreground?

[Nearholmer]

I do Nelson Style modelling: best seen with at least one eye closed.

[Compound2632]

43 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Aren’t wargames figures measured to the eyes, rather than the top of the head? 

 

Don't measure 'em till you can see the whites of their eyes!

[ChrisN]

James,

Glad that you are feeling more like your normal self.

 

28mm.  I find it highly annoying. I look for figures, and see something I like, then look at the scale.  28mm.  Happens all the time.

 

I do like your village, very nice indeed.

[Schooner]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

structures, wheelbarrows, etc.  

Pleasing.

 

Thumbing it: 5'6" (which seems a reasonable average height for 1350*) is about 1676mm. Divide by 28 for 1:60ish. Much to be said for a slightly looser definition of a scale than we're used in this parish, sitting within wider tolerances rather than plain wrong against a 'better' scale.

 

That's also closer to S than items big manufacturers sell as '00 Scale Model Buildings' which are nothing of the sort; and many smaller manufacturers' offerings across all claimed scales!

 

*Ah, close

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, Schooner said:

That's also closer to S than items big manufacturers sell as '00 Scale Model Buildings' which are nothing of the sort; and many smaller manufacturers' offerings across all claimed scales!

 

Ah yes, the good old Airfix "00/H0 scale"!

[Edwardian]

4 hours ago, 16Brunel said:

Good to have you back, James!  And 5.5mm to the foot scale is 1:55.4 - just sayin'...

 

- Scott

 

Hence "so circa 1/56"

 

Wargamers do not feel the need for precision the same way we do.

[RedGemAlchemist]

On 15/10/2023 at 20:09, Edwardian said:

Hello.

 

I don't want you chaps to be cross, or, worse, disappointed, but I have had a few months of being unwell. Walking Hadrian's Wall was probably not an adequate alternative to steriods and various other pills and inhalers that are getting me back to normal. This means that for sometime I have had shorter days with less physical and mental energy. I have struggled to keep up with work and family committments.

 

Now, though, as I return to normal, I have found inspiration and am easing my way back into model making but not, as yet, returing to railways. I looked at my neglected wargames stash and decided that what I needed most in my life was a Mediaeval town ....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nice to see you doing better, James. I myself have been suffering from a severe lack of railway modelling motivation of late (hence my own prolonged absence from these forums) so I can empathise.
I can also relate to having a large pile of unfinished wargaming projects. I still have a huge box of unmade 40k Space Marines. The issue there always is finding something to make that I'd actually use in game.