Picking up those brushes again.

Hi and welcome to the occasional mutterings of Dave Doc, a military modeller and some time gamer. Gaming and model making has given me a real education, History & Geography(obvious really), Artistry, Politics, Economics, Logistics, Project Management -you try building miniature armies without the last 3.

I will use the blog to record my creations & the odd occasion I actually do some gaming.

I have always been inspired by the aesthetic side of gaming. Playing on well constructed terrain using excellently painted units is always a joy.

Thursday, 12 February 2026

Back of Beyond - Bolshevik Maxims , bannermen and cavalry

 The latest additions to move my Bolshevik forces onto an all arms force .

I have added some brass wire spent casings to these . 

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Next up are some banner men . One of the issues with multiple similar painted unit can be identifying them to activate . I had an idea to create the red field and use cryllic font letters and numbers . I fed this into Chat GPT and out they popped . 

 


 
 
There are a few others designed just waiting the on order figures for the sailor and cavalry command .


 
I also did one for the railway workers in a recent game 

The last tranche of the stash were 6 cavalry.




And united with the existing pieces 



I have also acquired a 3d printed 155mm Schneider Long Tom . An usual piece for the BoB I reckon , but it does give me bang for my rouble 




I can swap out the field gun crew for now until I get hold of some more .

The complete for so far 


Still at bit more to add . I continue to enjoy doing these . Hopefully the next North Star order arrives this weekend .









Saturday, 7 February 2026

Gaming - Revolutionary in fighting - Back of Beyond /RCW

 We had a game today with a bit of  in fighting , Left and Right Socialist revolutionaries try to sort out who is the most revolutionary. Set of course in the Russian civil war 

Martin had the table set up ready to go . His and Andy’s guys on the right . John’s and mine on the left.

Martin wanted to use Bolt Action rather than STEA. The key differences :-

1) BA activation by dice colour and then choose which unit to apply it to , versus specific unit activation by card - both are randomised . BA then need to activate based on morale roll . 
2) There seems to be desire to know exactly how far your units will move (BA ) rather than rolling for it (STEA) and also using officers to to give a move bonus . 
3)the to hit d6 working outs are similar  , but with BA you need to convert the hits to kills. STEA you are just dead. . STEA treats heavy wepeons  / guns, vehicles very differently in terms of damage effects. 
4) melee favours the active side in BA with the attacker causing casualties first . STEA it’s effectively simultaneous with both sides dicing 
5) both have a morale system that accumulated losses impact on . More morale tests in STEA 

Both have their plus points . The movement of BA and the melee for  STEA  We had a good game  . Though Andy failed a hell of a lot of activation rolls which would have made a big difference 


Set up

My new cavalry deploy 

Our units in the centre 

We are also looking for campaign character- we find her in this building .

Andy’s sailors move toward the wood .


My field gun deploys to give support to my advancing infantry .


The firing starts - Andy’s gun crew decide to bug out before firing a shot

My sailors advance 

 


My forces mass and move forward 

My cavalry advance 

Advance toward to armoured car and seek cover 


 

My cavalry have destroyed Andy’s cavalry and are on his back board .
 
Altogether a good game . Somewhat dominated by Andy’s inability to activate consistently which really caused him issues . My dice were pretty good and lots of new units did well .the Left revolutionaries celebrated their victory 

I am looking at building a few buildings from scratch for this too . Example ideas below





Always things to do !