I was incredibly lucky to have had the chance to travel to 1 of our Napoleonic bucket list battlefields this month. With 3 other Napoleonic daft chaps we made the pilgrimage to Waterloo for the 203 anniversary!
It was an awesome trip and will remain in my memory for the rest of my life!!!
A really cool and funny thing. We were doing a staged closing of the gate pic. We had just finished and had started walking away when I thought I heard a knock on the gate, we looked over the wall and standing before us was a good number of French Napoleonic re-enactors in full gear looking to gain entry to hougoumont, class!!!
To stay in period we should really have denied them entry, however we decided that both Europe and times had changed, so we showed them round to the museum entrance. 😁
Almost a full month since my last post. I've had a good bit of bother this past couple of months with life not going 100% to plan for myself and people I care about. However that is life and as is expected the hobby side of things has taken a hit not that, that matters so much.
I have had some positive hobby things happen lately. I went to Claymore in Edinburgh and had a nice day. I didn't buy much to be honest but there were a number of cool games to see.
My biggest lift came from a delivery of ACW 28mm figures from Raven Banner Games in the US. I signed up for their kickstarter (my 1st) mainly for my brother, however as they are lovely figures I've decided I'll be doing a few regiments myself. The Kickstarter I'm pleased to say went really smooth and I purchased around 10 regiments worth as well as upper command sets and I'm really chuffed with my purchase.
The troops as you can see are all in greatcoats and I am amazed by the amount of poses that are supplied. There are 10 regular trooper poses that are joined by officers, flag men, musicians as well as enthusiastic types.
I finished them off with a kinda autumn/winter look and GMB flags and I'm pretty happy how they came out.
I also recently finished General Thomas Francis Meagher leader of the Irish brigade. Lovely figure!
I hope everyone is doing fine and getting on with their own projects.
Again it's been a good while time since my last blog post, life has been pretty hectic the past few weeks, months and probably year or 2 so fingers crossed for the next few months. Anyway I have continued with the help of the MMM group challenge and chats to make some good progress on some almost forgotten projects. The 1st of these is my little dabble with ancients. . .
I am pleased to say I have finally completed my 1st DBA army, and if your interested I have made a wee video of the completed troops.
The troops are from the Xyston range of ancients and are absolutely lovely little figures. I've painted them up as an Athenian army to either fight other Greek states or Persians. At 1st the idea of drilling the hands, attaching the shields and after the painting applying the decals/transfers to the shields filled me with dread however they came together really smoothly.
I have really enjoyed painting and also basing the little dudes, the figures have so much character and the variety of poses make them a joy to collect.
The decals I used for the shields are from Little Big Man Studio, after the 1st couple of efforts they went on really sweet and add so much to the finished figures.
Another massive plus for the figures is the quality of the horses, again there are a good few poses and the horses are lovely sculpts.
I thoroughly enjoyed painting the linen on these wee guys and it was a great change from my Naps. The Vallejo model colour range has so many rich shades that are perfect for painting ancients.
I think I maybe painted an extra base or 2 as its easy to get carried away when painting them.
With the basing I had considered using static grass or a combination of burnt grass and tufts however after having looked through pictures of the area I decided to use 2 different types of tufts and keep the ground work quite light. I'm happy enough with the finish.
So what next? Well I still plan to paint my Napoleonic collection however as a fall back I have Macedonians, Persians and plenty more Greeks if I fancy a change.
Next up will be a Prussian cavalry command.
I hope everyone is enjoying their painting and gaming,
Issue 3 of the Wargames Bloggers Quarterly is now available and I was very fortunate that PK very kindly added one of my blog posts into it, basic as it is compared to all the lovely eye candy inside. You can find the WBQ here WBQ
Also I would like to add that 2 winners of 3 New Year give away prizes have still to be located!
They are Warwick Louth and Paul O'G. If you know them please let them know and point them in my direction. My email is:
paulalba2004 (at) yahoo (dot) co (dot) uk
I'll keep the prizes for them till the end of February then I'll get Mai to pick a new winner for each and get them out. I sent all the other prizes out so if you haven't received your by now let me know.
Back on the iPad tonight and I've looked out some stuff that I'll probably never paint in my life time.
All received with the best intensions in mind so I'm hoping some of you guys may like 1 or 2 of the items?
Not a huge haul of goodies, however if you want the chance to win an item or 2 just leave a comment on this post with your preferred items (I'll make it a limit of 5) before midnight on 10th December 2014 and the winners will be posted before Christmas 2014 (I've changed the entry cutoff date so I can get in another post or 2 before the end of the year, I didn't think that 1 through with it being my first give away). You don't have to be a follower of my blog and it doesn't matter where you are in the world. My good lady Mylene will choose the winners from a hat on the 2nd of January 2015 and I'll post the winner of each item up on my blog in the days following and I'll get in contact with you somehow then post your item/s out in the 1st couple of weeks in January, that should give the Post office time to recover from the festive madness!
Also If you feel like posting a link about my comp on your blog that would be cool however it's not required to get an entry (and will probably slim down your own chances at the same time ;0)
No.1 is a group of robots or alien type troops in 28mm. They have received a white undercoat but not heavily and nothing that can't be removed easily. Perfect for a sci fi skirmish game, very nice figures.
No.2 are a couple of 28mm perry samurai, 1 will need a bath in simple green. Lovely figures and I finished a couple for a friend but really not my scale.
No.3 is a 28mm roman chap, he was a give away for the 1st couple of hundred arrivals to a scottish Wargames show either Kirriemuir or Claymore if I remember? A cracking figure however the David's already have 2 in their Roman army so this guy is surplus to requirement.
No.4 is an 80mm French guardsman, ahh those dreams of painting large napoleonic figures to pop in a display cabinet!
No.5 is another 28mm show give away figure this time of the Marques of Montrose I believe? I really like this figure however I have no use for him.
No.6 is a 54mm figure of Krasinski of the guard lancers, this is a lovely figure but I just don't think I'll ever paint him.
No.7 is another give away from a show, possible Gordon of Khartoum? Might make a good pulp character? If you know who he is let me know!
No.8 Another 3 chaps with no reall place in my collection yet still very nice figures. I believe 2 are show give always from up here in Scotland and the middle chap may have been a free figure when I bought foundry paints? So 2 highlanders from different time frames and another chap all in 28mm, maybe someone will want them?
And last up No. 9 something for 15mm/18mm folks!!!! A wee load of blue moon Prussian Landwehr, these are nice little figures and are a good size comparison to AB and Old Glory however I have enough unpainted figures of both AB and OG to do me so if someone wants them then stick your name in the hat.
Ok guys, I hope some of you out there are looking for some free stuff!!!!!
So as my laptop is now dead I'll have to try and get the hang of the iPad blogger AP, wish me luck as my first attempts were a nightmare. I'm not sure how to set a page yet so here goes.
I've had a break from my naps recently to concentrate on a project that I've always fancied doing, ancients!
A few years back a wargaming buddy Von Hannah (and strangely now also a work buddy in passing) asked me if I wanted to buy a number of xyston Greeks and enemies that he no longer wanted. In the stash was a huge amount of Greeks of all types, enough to make pretty big armies as well as thracians, little big man transfers and spears etc (and a number of Indians that I now regret flogging). In all a cracking haul. I almost bit his hand off as I had always liked the xyston figures even though I had no knowledge of ancients other than the odd drive by at shows.
I picked up the reference info I needed and saved the odd site with a lot of help from friends, however with the little time I have had I ended up boxing the troops up and stashing them away in the loft. Every 4 or 5 months I would get them out, dream a little them pop them away again. However for some reason around 10th October I got them out, did the reading and cleaned up a full DBA army and with the help of buddies Robert and JP I somehow managed to get them on the go. I have enjoyed every minute of doing them (and the LBM decals once I got the first 2 or 3 mistakes out the way). I still have to put the finishing touches to the Athenians then varnish and grass them however I'm pretty pleased with them for a 1st effort on ancients.
Pardon the pics as I've not really been using the iPad camera yet.
Just for fun these are a couple of dwarf kings I almost finished when young David was still young and playing LotR. I may just finish them and some of their brethren off at some point as they were fun to do!
I finished this zombie hunter off a couple of days ago. With the walking dead back on the telly I've started cleaning up zombies and survivors again. I'll do the odd one now and again to give me a break from naps. Is base is still to be finished.
And a couple of Von Lutzow's chaps just to show I still love my naps. Since doing the Greeks I'm feeling all warm towards my AB's again. I will continue with these guys again soon. The unit is half way done already.
Ok I'll post this up and see how it looks. Some little give always to come in the near future and hopefully some regular posts!
Also if you have the time could guys could you possibly leave a comment on how the blog shows up on your groupware and if your an iPad user and have any tips for a newbie they would be most welcome!
Sorry for the lack of activity on the blog, I stopped painting naps for a wee while but I have completed a Xyston Athenian DBA army (much goodness and fun!) Yip it shocked me to! Thoroughly enjoyed it and I am planning on sharing them on here as well as a few zombie related items and some of my friends work.
However my laptop has died and I'm not having much luck with the blogger AP through our iPad Air. It's not allowing my pics to upload and is only showing a section of the new post for editing.
I'm sure all is solvable however I'm short of time. When I get sorted I will be having a give away of some items that I just won't paint in my lifetime. So again sorry for the disappearance for online but I'll be back ASAP probably from a new laptop? I hope everyone is well.
I'm trying to get my head together a wee bit. Hoping the situation is stabilizing in Tacloban and the aid effort is kicking into gear despite the stupid political infighting! We have lost connection again and the UK News has somehow dropped the Tacloban story already??? I think this will be because of the amount of disasters that have happened all around the world? Our family had 2 weeks of food last time we spoke 2 days ago so as long as aid gets through soon they will be fine long term. I don't know how the aid will be distributed but we will instruct Mai's brother who is in the building trade to break down the cost and labour to rebuild the family homes lost in the Typhoon. I hope the government with international aid will help them rebuild as although we can help them with food, to build all the houses again would be well out of our family budgets. However we will take it day by day.
I'm not sure if this will be much of interest to other gamers but I have picked up a load of prints from online for putting around my wargames den plus a drawing of Napoleon I picked up with my 1st wage packet many years ago. Genuine Meissonier I was assured?
Pavlov grenadiers being blessed before battle.
Battle of Smolensk
I would guess this would be the blessing before the battle of Borodino?
Possible the battle of Borodino?
I now know thanks to Andrew that this is the Saxon garde du corp at Borodino. Shows what I know I thought the cavalry shown were Russian cuirassiers!
and my Meisonier drawing
I hope it is original as the pencil work is stunning close in with a magnifying glass. There was a larger drawing of what scene I cannot remember but I didn't have enough from my 1st wage to buy it. If anyone knows any more info about the scenes above I would love to hear it.
In time he will cover all the different periods and scales he collects and I'm always impressed how his painting and modelling improves with every new post.
At the moment he's working his way through 15mm British for FOW.
Having a weekend off has become pretty unusual for me so when I end up with 3 days off I don't know what to do with myself. I know I should be cracking on painting the loft to get it all finished and ready for carpeting but I've had a few new arrivals and fancied messing about with them.
1)I picked up a couple of resin redoubts (as well as fleches) from a wargamer in the USA. My 40mmx40mm artillery don't quite fit them so I will have to do some sawing/patching to sort that out. I will be mounting them on some board and repainting them etc.
A little tester for possible battles to come.
I don't have many French done so it will be down to the David's to supply an enemy for my Russians to fight.
2) My brother David managed to pick me up some tables and chairs for our wargames. Brilliant!!!
He is going to see if he can get me another table so fingers crossed.
3) I mentioned a few posts back that I picked up some Fantassin Prussians from ebay. Well this is them with a couple of spare AB's and a BH mounted officer added in.
All the figures in this photo are Fantassin. I have pretty much totally repainted them. To be honest I'm not that impressed with the casting. The figures are the same size as AB's but some of the detail is pretty rough and there are a few arms missing. I have no idea where these figures started life so there is no way of telling if they are copies or originals?
Anyway I have based up the 2nd battalion and added in some spare AB's to fill up the numbers. This is how the figures came to me so I'm happy how the 1st battalion came out.
4) David spotted this while on holiday (and I pinched it!) and thought it would be good for something. I have no idea if it is the right period or style for our Naps battles? I was thinking of using it for Saxony 1813 or France 1814, possibly even Belgium 1815, what do you think?
Knowing that winter is just around the corner I picked up a cool hat and gloves set for Mai and by chance Mai had ordered up some new boots.
Throw in an old winter jacket and as if by magic Mai is transformed into a WW2 fighter pilot.
Right back to the Naps.
I have again been far to busy with work (taking all sorts of shifts to get our saving back on track). These were originally my own figures but I passed them (as well as some other stuff)to my buddy JP for some help provided and also for being a thoroughly nice bloke. I think he has made a great job of them!
I mentioned it before but I really like the Napoleonic eye candy.
I picked up 2 lots of 15mm Prussians off ebay at very good prices recently.
You know the kind of lots, not so good photo's, you think some of the figs are AB so you watch to see if the price is right. Well I won cavalry and infantry/artillery for a good price and it turned out a nice deal as the cavalry had a 24 man AB regiment (that I was counting on) as well as a bonus AB lancer regiment (26) and 16 fantassin hussars and a small mountain of other makes. The second lot were AB artillery and just short of 2 battalions of fantassin Prussians with again a good few other makes. I took a mad turn and cleaned up the Fantassin infantry adding in some AB figures to make 2 battalions of the Colberg regimen. They are almost finished as I JP style machine gun painted them and they are not looking too bad.
Also the loft is now complete with electrics and woodwork so all I have to do is finish painting it and put a carpet down, pick up a chair from Ikea and I hopefully will be ready for some serious painting!!!
