Round Up Time

A little light reading? Not according to my back! 37 Bernard Cornwell books (I also have two others) I never knew he wrote so many.These would be enough for anyone but I also have six books that looked interesting.

I don't know anything about Chris Kuzneski but they look to have some kind of historical connection so I am hoping they will be of interest. Given that I usually manage 4+ history books to every book of fiction this could keep me going for a long long time. Why did I get that Kindle?

It must be a month or more since I cleaned up my painting desk and it was queried what it would look like after a month. Well it looks quite messy but most of the things on it right now are at least being worked on if not today then at some point in the last few weeks. Seems like I have been doing a bit of this and a bit of that and as such not got a great deal finished. Well hopefully that will mean quite a few bits will all come to conclusion over the next few days/weeks.

Secret Santa is out of the blocks

OK just a quick post to let you know that all the Secret Santa's have been contacted and everyone should have a target. If you have not been contacted check your e-mail and if no info is there (from Sticking Chicken) then send me an e-mail and I will check with Cath.

If you have somehow fallen through it's not to late to jiggle things a bit, or should that be jingle things a bit? Cath want's me to say thanks for all those who have contacted her with messages regards this and also those who have sent wish lists to her. She will pass these on to the buyer. So if you don't want to add anything to your blog you can always send on to Cath and she is happy to send on. Of course you can always just surf your targets blog and get ideas.

On a slightly different subject, I have received my targets toys for the Santa Clause and just need to start painting it up. Well after some assembly first  ;-)

Short blog post tonight as it's my sons 7th Birthday tomorrow and if that is not enough excitement we have our first roleplaying session here tonight. So I have to shake the last of the rust off me and get ready to rumble but one last thing before I go, Dave at One Man and His Brushes has got in touch with me regarding a lot of 6mm Adler his mate wants to sell. It's a very good offer and the figures that are painted are excellent and painted by none other than Dave him self, I have coveted owning some of Dave's work for some time so between me and Lee we are snapping them up. I have a great deal of interest in the Prussians (a mix of painted and unpainted) and possibly the early French whilst Lee is looking at the Austrians and yes more Russians. The whole lot has to be split between us one way or another but I can see me stretching into more Nations than originally planned which is the way it goes but now I have an excuse, it was Dave's fault ;-)

I'm a Sucker for Books!

I love a good book, and to be honest I don't seem to be able to read them fast enough. Now the books above are not ALL the books I have yet to read, these are just the ones to hand. All but two of them though have been bought in the last six months (along with others) with a good chunk from a local Library sale with prices between 20-40p another two from Newstead Abbey where the author was selling his ECW fiction so I grabbed a couple. A real mix of history and historical fiction. I have what may well be the rest of the Bernard Cornwell books and some other fiction coming soon as someone at work is selling her father in laws books at 30p a pop. All told about another 20 books.

So the question on my mind is why did we buy a Kindle? Well I will answer that in a future post along with a request for places to find good free History books.

Fantasy Update, It's About a Dwarf

With the Fantasy figures for the players in the upcoming game (Wednesday!) I like to think of them as Commissions and as such try and get the figures to match their exact requests whilst at the same time trying to add what I think will make them a better looking mini. 

This is all well and good IF the person you are painting for is at home with it and do not have very set ideas on how the figure wood look. For the Dwarf I had quite specific instructions, lots of dark colours, grubby looking with red/brown hair.

My main concern was that a lack of light in the figure would end up making the result look too dark given the size of the figure. As such I tried for a more medium finish but when this was rejected only went a few shades down. The owner was still not happy and another repainting of the trousers and tunic brought it to the lighter end of dark with a few washes on the trousers to dull them down further.

The end result on the cloths left the owner rather happy and I could move on to the hair which I started off a really dark brown and brought it up through four highlighting stages by adding oranges to the brown. The end result gives it some depth and rather than being a red head looks to be red brown as requested. I mostly used the last highlight on the lower parts of beard and hair as well as the moustache and eyebrows. 

I finally gave up on the eyes after re-doing them more than ten times, he will just have to put up with a wall eye ;-)

This is an old character from previous gaming, he comes along with a pony and dog. I so happened to have a pack horse so will paint that up over the next few weeks but the old dog model has disappeared so I bought this old fellow at Derby a few weekends ago and painted him up last night. I will say no more about him until after the first session or two.

Anyone worried that this is all I have been doing can relax. I also have a 6mm Hussar Regiment to show off tomorrow, this is the first of the new Baccus Cavalry and the other three are well on their way and should be sorted fairly soon though I am trying to get the last two character figures finished before the first session in just two painting sessions time.

I have also started on all the gunners and three French Infantry battalions I want finished this month as well as getting started on those Zulu's. Once I have enough figures painted for the adventurers I can ease off a little though I still need to get more of the monsters painted ready for future games but once we get to playing just once a month the pressure on these will drop back further.

Building of the Week? How About A Review?

OK I wanted to talk about Leven Miniatures and I have not yet got anything done with the buildings on my table so I thought I could get a bit more out of it by combining the two ideas.

A box of resin, this was after getting the foam peanuts out.

I am sure anyone who has read the notice on Mikes blog has immediately thought NO!!!!!!!!!!!! You would not be on your own, it was my first reaction quickly followed by concern for Mike as I knew he has great plans for range extensions so was sure it would not be something good.

Turns out that the issue is not so fast as to stop Mike in his tracks and after a week or so thought he has already sorted out some of the issues ready for when things do have to change. That said it won't actually make as much difference as first thought as he still will have production facilities but it may I think put a short term spanner in the works for his plans on doing shows. This is bad news for those wanting to get to look at the buildings in the flesh but a relief for postal purchases. 

I placed my order and got a reply the same day telling me that he would have to cast up a few of my bit's, hardly surprising given the number of walls I had ordered and once done I would get the invoice. Sure enough I got an invoice the following day and a few days after that I had my products. Total time was about four or five days from ordering to door and that included a Sunday!

Now I have a good relationship with Mike so maybe, just maybe I got a little extra treatment from him but you know what? I don't think it's the way Mike rolls, I think I just got the Leven service and as such any one who has been put off my the announcement on his site should think again and get that order in. The problem if you like (I like to think of it as refreshing) is that Mike can be rather too honest, he downplays the quality of his goods and over plays the disruption of his business though I am glad to see that he has downgraded the original message that had spawned a number of self help groups (that was a joke for those who need telling, LOL)

So back to the Building of the week thingy 

These are the items won in my Leven Giveaway recently, now all I have to do is get them painted and sent on. I think they will be for some 6mm ACW gaming and I will get them washed and started over the weekend.

All these are for me, mine all mine. These are to be added to my tiny town and will be going on a couple of my larger tiles to represent the slum part of town, don't expect much in the way of grass  ;-)

Remember how I washed a set of steps for my post mill away? Mike offered to send me a replacement straight away. I replied that I could wait and to send it with my next order. Well I forgot to ask when I placed the order but Mike did not when it came to packing it. What can I say, excellent customer service.

Whilst I was ordering something for me Lee wanted to add a bit to the order. Ended up being EIGHT sets of walls, I am thinking these may well be for the Quatre Bras game and/or Waterloo and even if it's enough?

So rather a lot of resin is hanging around my house right now. I am guessing I had better get started

Prussian 6mm Artillery by Adler

Nine days into October and only just putting up the last of the Prussians finished in September. With these I am finally ahead of target on all the Prussians, though I really need to get on with more gun's to stay ahead I suppose.

The two things I take the least pleasure in doing is painting guns and horse's furniture. I guess that makes these a bit of a pain then. Being truly honest they did paint up rather well with a lot less bother than I expected. Well sculpted lines made them easier to paint whilst cutting the over extended axles back made the gun's look very much more like I think they should do. All that said I think once I have all my guns painted up from Adler I will just grab the fully cast ones Baccus offer just because they are so much easier to get on with. 

As you can see the limbers are great models and I can highly recommend them but they are fiddly. Those tiny wheels are a bit of a paint to fit but the end result was well worth it if your prepared for the extra time and effort you need to put into Adler if you want the best results.

I just hope the blue on the limbers and guns will be acceptable as it seems every source I have looked at has given me a different shade making me plumb for a colour I most liked. I am starting to favour a more sparse grass finished base. Strange as I have always thought these looked the least realistic, such is the irony of my hobby.

Here we have the guns deployed ready to give some out to the French, hopefully they will do terrible when they take the field for Waterloo as I will be playing as the French. The great thing about guns and crews is that they don't really take much time to paint them up and so you can get results really quick.

So that's four guns and two limbers all ready for the big game, this gives me eight guns (four batteries) done so far. So the Prussians are coming along nicely though the four Hussar Regiments are now parked more than half way through waiting a chance back at the front of the queue as I have moved onto another couple of projects. The good news is I should get one more unit off the table tonight. Good job really as the Leven Buildings for my giveaway have arrived along with shall he say a few others  ;-)

Catch you later, I have a box with my name on it.

Wargames Neutral

It's been a while since I last talked about this. When I say a while I obviously mean over a year! But since coming back into the hobby I have not actually spent ANY money on either gaming or painting. Or should I say any of MY money.

I guess before continuing I had better quantify what I mean by this. All my wargaming and painting have been paid for either by Christmas or Birthday presents, the flogging of old wargames figures or famously my back and breast from my Sealed Knot days. The last revenue stream has been the painting and selling of figures or the painting for figures that has got me a fair bit of kit.

So more or less I have managed to get a hell of a lot of kit together over the last two years and without the worry of taking it out of the pot. In fact my hobby has subbed baying the bills a couple of times in the past. However a mix of the Waterloo Project and the recent spending spree at Castle Donnington has almost dried up the pool, so much so that I don't think I will be spending much more during the rest of this year. In fact I am almost certain of it as I have just sent off the Baccus Prussian order and a fairly sexy Leven order. 

Before you all reach for hankies let me set things straight, I am not at all without stuff to paint, hell I think even at my current rate I will not run out in the next few years. Indeed I am really surprised that I have managed to turn my small hill into a mountain, but that's the curse of the wargamer I guess.

No rather than spend more money I am dead set on getting through my commitments, the 6mm Zulu's will feature a lot over the next few months until I have them all painted up. I also have the Santa Clause to paint up having received it this week. I also will start to receive my Winter War Kickstarter and plan to start work on that fairly soon so I can start selling the painted figures to recharge my war chest ready for the Spring Campaign. This was a set tactic from the beginning as I was sure I will be able to get far in excess of what I have paid for the figures given that the figures work out about 50p each and will retail at £5 a pack of four. Based on those prices all the vehicles will be free so really as long as the figures turn up I am onto a winner. I may even throw some of the vehicles when they arrive straight into my community currency to exchange for wanted lead. 

So even though my painting time is now far more restricted than it was six months ago I still think I can keep neutral and yet still buy plenty of lead fun, but I wonder how many others can boost this lucky way of wargameing?