Holiday Bonus

After four months in the job I finally take a week off as holiday. After near two years of less than low activity the fast pace has been hard to get used to and has been especially bad this last month or so with me taking naps in ever increasing amounts. So a rest was a little overdue and very much appreciated. Given it's the school holidays I will have a week with the kids and whilst we won't be out every day we plan on doing a fair few trips out. 

But as an added bonus the book I ordered off Amazon Marketplace arrived. I am sure you have guessed what it is. I have seen this book going for £15-£25 consistently so when I saw it for just over £4 I did not hesitate. For a little under £7 all in I got this posted from the States, you just have to love the Marketplace for that type of deal. 

I did not expect too much as it was listed as average condition but in fact I would list it as good. It's an ex-library book but looks to have not been popular. I now can add this to my reading list. I have read the second volume a month or so back (flip back to see the review) and already know some of the things Hofschroer has to say will annoy I still look forward to reading it, especially since agreeing to put on Quatre Bras. I may even read exerts to the figures to give them a little morale boost.

Talking of Library it seems the local town library is having a book sale next Friday so we will pop over and see if they have anything to tempt me, the kids are sure to come away with books, they love reading and had finished the local library challenge within ten days of it opening (read six books over eight weeks) OK neither was reading War and Peace but they put in some serious time in.  I am pleased to report that since finishing the challenge they have continued to read like mad.

Project Waterloo, The Prussians So Far.

I have filled up one A4 File Box and had to crack open another so thought it was a good time to get a few pictures of the whole lot together.

I have to say I thought it would look somewhat more imposing. This is about a third of the infantry, half the cavalry and a lot less command and guns required for the Waterloo re-fight. It is true though that they will take up far more space on the battlefield which is rather handy given the size of the table.

So I have 24 battalions of infantry painted so far with exactly half of these being Baccus. I am not sure exactly how many more battalions I have in my Prussian to paint box but it's still fairly full! Cavalry wise I have far more than will be used for Waterloo but then again I was never just building for that one battle so you will see plenty more of the cavalry as this goes on.

I already have made a start on this months levy, these should be finished either next week or the week after dependant on what takes my whim. I am further forward with the French which I will finish first.

I don't have a problem mixing the Baccus with the Adler at all, OK not all on the same base (except I probably add Landwehr skirmishers from Baccus onto the Adler Landwehr as Adler do not do them!)

It's the first time the guns have made in onto my blog for some reason. These are Adler howitzers, I am not 100% happy with the width of the carriage, they may be correct but they look really wide to me. I have quite a lot more of the Adler guns and crews which is a good thing given the number I will need for Waterloo, even if they don't get to be used as will be the case of many of them.

Here we have the 9ld guns all ready to knock holes in the French. I already have LOTS of French cannon's in part thanks to my Secret Santa from last year. Again it's a good job given the numbers we will be seeing in our game.

So not a bad start and you won't see another group shot till the second box is full or I finish a Corp. I am hoping that once I have enough cavalry finished these will get a game or three whilst we wait for the big game comes round. Before that you will get to see Lee's Russians who must be quaking in their boots waiting to face my French.

RAF Fighter Pilot by Ultracast

On my drive home last night I got a taste for some flesh. Indeed as I got closer to home and the wife it went from a taste to a hunger, even a NEED.

So with tea finished and the kids put to bed I switched on my twin tubes and cracked open a few flesh pots. I did not stick to just the Pilot, but I will leave the other four for future posts ;-)

I wanted to start this figure just so it's off the marks, Ultracast are a Canadian supplier but have stockists all over the world and after starting work on this resin kit I can see why. It's a 54mm eight piece kit that had little in the way of flash and fitted together fairly well and cost £15.75 plus postage and captures the young spirit of the pilots of the day.

I had a few concerns about the flesh and still not 100% sure of the finish but will wait till I have a few more colours on him before making any changes. The hair will be black, this is the colour hair of the person it is to be given to, I WAS hoping he was a boring brown haired bloke but no such luck.

I still have the last piece to add which is his scarf but I need to finish his life-jacket first. Talking of which I was really not looking forward to that as I expected to have fits over it but Vallejo Flat Yellow went on a treat. I then added some German Orange to work as the deep shade and then added to more flat yellow a little Light Yellow and worked both shades darker and lighter over the various parts of the jacket. I still need to do the canvas straps and rear body of the life-jacket. Then I will add the scarf and move along to the uniform which will be another challenge.

So you good painters out there any advice on the face? I want him to look tired if possible to show the strain and this guy will never be a pin up with a nose like that which suits fine. Make or break could be the eyebrows, will have to look into that. Advice throughout this process is eagerly sought.

15mm ECW Parliament's Boys

Yes you read that right 15mm! 19 of the 20 figures are Museum Miniatures but included to make up the numbers is a Matchlock Miniatures bod. He looks a little slight amongst all the Museum but he is a much better figure in my mind. 

Sorry the pics are not that great. Matt want's to base these himself to fit in with the rest of his army so they do not lend themselves to being photographed on my desk.

I just painted them up in red jackets with mostly grey trousers with the odd brown pair thrown in. They could be any one of many regiments and indeed if the orange sash is repainted red or blue they become royalist. Either way the musket rest pegs them as early war.

I have just the one regiment left to paint for Matt but next up will be his 6mm Zulu's who I have a hunch will get based up first  ;-) Mind you Matt bought the rules for FOG:R so once we have a game of that it may be that he will jump back into getting all his units rebased and back into play. That is something I really look forward to as the first ever proper army was my Essex 15mm NMA which I still have and have already rebased for FOG:R but if they do not do it for us I would be happy to have a crack at making my own rules (anything has got to be better than rebasing for a THIRD time!

I do have one regiment of my own that remains unpainted so it's not impossible that I will get this painted up as well. If so it's a nip over to Caliver Books as I really like the look of a Matchlock figure. I know I really need to get cavalry as under FOG:R I just don't have enough.

Whatever I decide I know I will start fitting in the odd 15mm regiment for various periods and the odd 28mm WWII figure for the Sniper Reminders. Not so much as I am tiring of the 6mm Napoleonic's, far from it but it's becoming the single track I am going down which must become thin for the rest of you.

Weekend of Prep

I know the weekend is not yet finished, but then again neither am I. I will prime most of the infantry before the day is out. I am not all that fond of prepping figures and so have come up with a number of excuses to take breaks but I was always going to finish them before Monday!

Here we have 3 battalions of the new Baccus French line infantry, another 3 Battalions of Prussian reserve infantry by Adler. Also by Adler I have two army command, one corp command and one division command base. All the infantry and some of the command are this months target force for Project Waterloo. I also plan to rebase some old 15mm figures, some to keep and some to sell on.

The Kickstarter update reminded me about the 32mm figure I had received from Red Republic Games as a Birthday present so I cleaned this up (the little it needed) and made up the figure and pinned him to his base.

I had already assembled the 1941 RAF pilot but had yet to fill in the joints so this was done today. The Crimea base was not forgotten either as I cleaned up the White Putty I had filled the cracks with over a month ago! 

Talking of filling the gaps and joints I have to say that I was not really that happy with the White Putty, seems a little difficult to use (tips anyone?) and the need to wear a mask has put me off using it again in the hot weather (plus it steams up my glasses).

So I used some Pollyfilla on the Arena Rex figure and was so happy with the result tried it on the pilot! I have yet to clean off the surplus but it went on a lot easier and filled the gaps with no bother. So far so good. 

The Pilot is for my Boss at work and needs to be finished for Christmas so I will be committing chunks of my surplus painting time on him but will also mix it up with the other two so I can see progress on all three and break up the 6mm posts a little.

I have panted up a ECW regiment for Matt, the varnish is just drying now but I won't be basing these so I should post them tomorrow. But I will ask Matt if he wants the last of the ECW regiments painting or does he want me to leave those for awhile and move onto his 6mm Zulu army.

Either way I think I need to get on with a few other projects in the background. I have got to the point where I can paint up the required three battalions a month and still have enough time spare to do other projects and I realise that constant 6mm will be getting old. I still am enjoying painting them though so that is a relief.

Blog-Con Under 100 Days

In just one week it will be less than three months to Blog-Con, already it's less than 100 days. Up to now it's been going to happen sometime in the future. Now it's not as far away as you might think. The blog devoted to it has a surprisingly low number of followers at the moment, given the interest shown in it. 

Part of the massive playing area.

So keep 9/10th November in your mind folks as I mentioned on the site, once the kids are back at school it will be here like a flash and all those brownie points you need to accrue still a work in progress. 

Not only has a lot of interest from Bloggers been shown but also from some of the Nottingham based suppliers so we should have plenty to see beyond the games we take along. It's probably the best Con to take a virgin display or participation game to given the lack of pressure that will be in play. Yes the weekend is skewed to skirmish but bigger games are most welcome. 

Talking of Skirmish games, I have received the PDF rules, card figures and stat cards for the basic gladiators for Arena Rex. The figures will not be ready for Blog-Con but armed with the rules and card warriors I may just bring this along to give it an outing. Well it has got me to pull out the figure they supplied me and so after a very minimum clean up I have put it together. OK the top guys paint it THEN put it together but that's not me. But more on that in the future

Building of the Week Fachwerkhaus

In what suspiciously looks like a weekly pimping session for Leven Miniatures I present to you FAC02 Fachwerkhaus  Type B at £2.50 Now some of you will perhaps remember that I have already painted up the same building quite awhile ago when they first came out. I actually have another nine more mixed between Type A and B that I intend to paint up during the year which will make up the town I am planning.

All the buildings are placed on 60x60 bases which should all butt up to each other. The plan is to have plenty of the German buildings but also mix in other buildings as well. I will have lots of different combinations of tiles so that I can make up different shaped towns to suit our needs. I would not have set out on such a large project if not for the low price of Leven buildings, of course it's all relative given the amount of money I have spent on them. In fact if I had stuck to the higher priced suppliers I would have spent a lot less :-)

This one just has a slice of road running down the side of the building. The walls are somewhat yellow in colour rather than the more cream look of the previous two buildings which was my intent as I will use a bunch of different shades across them all.

So here I have the first four tiles with buildings on, though I also have a blank tile. Actually it looks really small with just these four done. I obviously need to base up some of the other finished buildings to help fill up the town.

Of course under my rules four battalions would fit in this town so it's not exactly small as it is in the scale of things. I have to say though that of all the Leven buildings that the German buildings take the most work and consume so much time as the timbers and walls take up a huge amount of time. My tip is to paint the wood first and fill in round the timbers as doing it the other way so often leads to a lot of careful and slow painting in straight lines.

 I also was aiming at getting the roof tiles a close colour match to the others but not so close as to be mistaken for the same colour. If it's going to be a big town it needs more than one tile supplier and also different ages to the tiles giving different tones. You wait till I start adding the various workshops ;-)

I feel a few shots with figures on will be in order when I get a few more buildings finished. I do like the street level shots, I think these are good enough to be mistaken for 15mm buildings and that's down to the craftsmanship of Leven. 

The irony of the fact these buildings will not be used as German for quite some time does not escape me, but I think they would work as Belgian or even back nearly one hundred years for the ECW or Thirty Years War. Convenient given the ECW army I have under way.