Well here we are, another day, another post.

The painting total is still on low side with only 8 battalions painted since my last post -4 Prussian and 4 Austrian- so I can’t really say that the project is barrelling along, more like rolling a boulder uphill –very slow. Moving forward, I now have the last five regiments from the last order of Prussian cavalry nearly finished consisting of four Kuirassier and the half regiment (5 squadrons) of Hussars that were present at Lobositz. Just awaiting for the latest order to turn up and I reckon I will be able to call it done…maybe.

 

But, outside of wargaming, there were two totally unrelated events that have taken place this month. On the 1^st, Sittingbourne FC were playing Southend FC (my home town with fond memories of watching the Shrimpers play in the early 70’s), in the last 16 of the Isuzu FA Vase Trophy. It was a no-brainer, I had to go…as a Sittingbourne fan of course. Now bearing in mind that Southend are three tiers in the footballing pyramid above Sittingbourne, the Brickies weren’t intimidated at all. However when the ref called for 7 minutes of added time all the fans were baffled as to where they had come from. But in the 96^th minute, the visitors end erupted with shouts and exclamations of joy when the Brickies only went and scored!. The crowd went wild as the saying goes. It must have taken the officials and stewards several minutes to get the players back onto the pitch. There is a video of the goal but I don’t know how to link it I’m afraid. So now, they have a home fixture in the quarter final against Aldershot Town. Thinking best case scenario, Sittingbourne are only two games away from a fixture at WEMBLEY!

The other event was a trip to the theatre in Chatham to see John Barrowman. Wife’s idea, she has liked him for donkeys so I treated her. I actually quite enjoyed it. The man has a great voice and is the epitome of a showman.

Don’t let your brushes go stiff!

Some interesting aquisitions.

 

 

 

Evening Compadres!

 This time I thought I would have a gloat. A few months ago I was wandering around the local charity shops with Ma Subs –her idea not mine- when, out of the corner of my eye I happened to see a painting with a flag on it on the opposite side. I meandered through all the pieces of furniture and came across the two little gems pictured below. I was extremely chuffed as you can imagine by both the prints and the price. For those of you who might not know, they are by the extremely talented American artist Don Troiani who specialises in the ACW. Aaaaannnddd, before that I picked up a 30" x 17" (600mm x 430mm) framed print of Lady Butler's charge of the Scots Greys at Waterloo, an absolute must to adorn the wall in the den/ room of any self respecting wargamer

However, that is not the end of my good fortune. About a week before that I was let loose on my own in town and on a whim decided to have a gander in the local Oxfam bookstore. Boy, was I pleased. I found a copy of Duffy’s ‘The Army of Frederick the Great’ for the princely sum of £3.99! as you have no doubt guessed, that went straight into the shopping bag…after paying of course. Then, less than a week later I found a copy of ‘The Golden History of the Mongols’ by Urgunge Onon (translated of course as my knowledge of the Mongolian language is about as good as my Sanskrit!). This seems to be a variation on ‘The Secret History of the Mongols’ by the same author. A rather posh volume by the Folio Society in its own …yep, you guessed it, little folio. That was a steal at £9.99, well I thought it was a steal anyway.

MickS

My latest indulgence

 

This week I have mostly painting Irregular Miniatures 2mm 7YW Prussians and Austrians. Nice little blocky types in a variety of sizes. I ordered one Prussian and one Austrian and once they arrived and I knew what I was working with I could work out base sizes etc. The Prussian chaps were made up of 3-deep blocks but the Austrians were only 2-deep so I decided to go with 4 blocks for the Prussians and two for the  Austrians, all on 50 x 30 mdf bases. Making a line 10mm from the top and marking the centre this was to be the position of the standard. (Unfortunately, all the moulded on standards –although probably in scale- were simply too small to get any kind of distinctive colours on, so they all had to be cut off. This was true for the cavalry as well). A quick drill with a pin vice made the hole for the standard pole –a pin cut to 12mm leaving the pinhead on- and a dab of Superglue set it in place. Going with my usual plan to hand paint all my standards I cut a rectangle 14mm x 5mm making the standards 5mm square and 4 to wrap around the pin. Cavalry standards were dealt with in the same fashion. Now before any bl**dy wargames police start going apoplectic about standard sizes and numbers per regiment blah, blah blah, this system works perfectly fine for me, and I think is much more pleasing on the eye!

So I now present some pictures of my very 2mm chaps in the form of the first Prussian infantry brigade for the Battle of Lobositz taken from the excellent source material that is the Kronoskaf site. https://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=1756-10-01_-_Battle_of_Lobositz  (P.S. I still have the command base to do).

I'M BACK!!!

 

After a looong –really unforgivable- break of nearly four years in which all manner of things have happened both in the real and my wargaming world, I finally managed to work out how to get back onto my blog. (I can almost hear all of you thinking ‘Shame.’ in a patronising, nay pitying manner as if I am some doddering, senile old fool…well not quite senile but…).

Anyway, as is said in Thespian circles, on with the show. I have been to many shows in the intervening four years –both wargames and music festivals- and basically have had a rip-roaring time. Life is good, as is said.

However, where actual gaming is concerned, I can count the number of games I’ve had at home on the thumb of one hand minus one! Away from home I managed two, both at Posties Shed with the Rejects. And a fine bunch of chaps they are. But painting, now that is a whole different thing. I started slow, just to pace myself you know. With each infantryman, cavalry trooper, artillery crew, vehicle, building etc. all counting as one item, in 2021 I managed a pathetic 400 items, all of which were 6mm; a number of Mongols (Rapier), the highlight being Rapier’s Qublai Qan’s four elephant command post; more Renaissance chappies –mostly H&R- and a number of FPW types.

2022 saw a slight increase in production; up to a still miserable total of 709 figures, vehicles et al, most of which were for a still incomplete GNW 6mm using the wonderful Baccus chaps.

2023 was a whole different thing. Shedloads of Irregular RJW types of both Russian and Japanese using proxies (British in caps), for the Japanese…in 6mm this works just fine for me. Plus a fair number of SciFi chaps, vehicles and terrain –mostly buildings. The grand total for the year was 1089 pieces.

Last year peaked at 1033 items. This saw then the final scratch of my SciFi itch; some more Achaemenid Persians –Baccus; a few Irregular Song Chinese –now on hold because Irregular have stopped producing their 6mm ranges, hopefully this is only a temporary thing- and yet another brand new period, only this time a completely new scale…2mm Seven Years War (7YW), Prussians and Austrians. This is the result of me finally giving in to the 2mm urge after seeing Ray Roussel’s splendid War of Spanish Succession microchaps on his blog. (https://onelover-ray.blogspot.com/search/label/2mm) So now I currently have about twenty battalions of infantry, six cavalry regiments, a few gun bases per side and a terrain pack –all from Irregular and am slowly getting through them. This is the thing about my painting schedule…I haven’t got one. I paint when I like what I like and if I ever do fancy a solo game I have plenty of other periods and armies to  play with. But in true wargamer fashion, I’ve now ordered a couple of ECW 2mm Battlepacks, again from Irregular.

Now, cast your minds back to before Covid. As a prezzie, my lad had organised a visit to the recreated section of a WW1 trench, the brainchild of the historian, film advisor, archaeologist and all round nice chap Mr. Andy Roberstshaw. Obviously, this never happened… that is until last Saturday. Now I thought it was down the M20 near Ashford while my lad seemed to think it was somewhere in Surrey. Turned out neither of us were right although I was geographically closer; it was actually over the back of the Kent County Showground, a car journey of nine minutes! Had a great time, interesting conversations covering all things military in the area and some beyond. He can be found at https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1579398/. Tours can be arranged at https://www.cemahistory.org/  Recommended.

So that’s about really everything wargaming. Apart from some piccies from the trench visit. I did ask about the huge number of trees in No Mans Land but Andy said that the local conservationists gave an emphatic NO! when he asked if he could remove them!  

 

Self-explanatory.

Some period tinned food stored in a wriggly-tin shelter.

Gas alarm. An original 18pdr shell casing.

Fire step.

Funk hole.

On the left is a periscope. 

 

 A brand new post...finally!

Right, two and a half years down the line I thought it would be a good time to update the blog on what’s been happening.

 I’ve become a granddad -or Grampy as I’m known- for the second time. Our daughter gave birth to a right little bundle in November before last. We get to WhattsApp them nearly every day.

   In no particular order I managed to get to some local shows –remember them?- and a mate got tickets for the Man City v Watford FA Cup Final, what a day out that was, never been to Wembley before. Got some pics of the day as well.

   Wargaming wise, a lot has happened on the painting front but not toooooo much on the gaming side –even before this Covid thing. In fact, the Covid situation hasn’t changed my life in any way apart from wearing the bl**dy mask. Hate them, a throwback to my experiences with Army dentists; not quite a panic attack, but shortness of breath can become an issue. I know, probably psychosomatic but there you go.

   You may remember the 6mm Early War and the Renaissance Italian/Imaginations projects I had talked about in earlier posts. Well, they are all pretty much complete…I say complete but of course you know that will never happen. I have just received some more German vehicles so they are to be done and I am currently painting some army standards for the Italian Wars, unit flags and the chaps can be seen in the pictures.

   Latest army to be done is my Rapier Mongols. Absolutely beautiful looking little chaps and a joy to paint – all 225 of them! Also in the pipeline are the Macedonians, a mix of H&R and Rapier. Not only that I found more 6mm FPW so they have been undercoated and are next in line to be done.

  Now, you may be thinking that it’s taken a hell of a long time just for those armies but in the summer months I have sat in the garden and made a lot of buildings for the Early War project. All of them are made from my staple of cereal box card. Again pics below.

  So there you have it, a quick update and I hope to be more diligent with my blogging in the future; lets face it, it couldn’t really be any worse.

Rapier Mongols

EW Germans

EW British

EW French

Renaissance Infantry, artillery and commanders

Renaissance infantry standards which can slide over pikes, poles etc. 

Renaissance cavalry, trayne etc

Macedonians (top) and Sassanids/ Achaemenids (bottom)

Football stadium, cathedral and industrial building

Four different churches including an Italian one (rear)

4 more industrial buildings and some stand alone rubble bits

Two more industrial buildings, a windmill, oil/gas tank, ruined house and castle tower, a town statue and two pillboxes. 

Not much going on in the wargaming part of my life so I thought I'd share this. Last weekend, in the perfect sunshine, was the Ramblin Man Rock Festival at Mote Park here in Kent. After two days in the press pits I ended up taking over 2600 pics. After culling  through them all I whittled it down to about 10-20 per band which still left me with well over 200 pictures. Following that they had to be checked for editing so that is why it has taken so long. Here are just some of the pics I took.

The Adelaides

Steel Panther

Ian Hunter from Mott the Hoople

Ariel Bender from Mott the Hoople

Australian Rockers Voyager

Sons of Apollo

Lzzy Hale from Halestorm

Fish

Broadside 2018

Last weekend I trotted off to the Broadside Show in Sittingbourne, my LOCAL show, (reasons for the uppercase will become clearer later). I do like this show because it is like the shows I used to go to as a runtling, the sort you can walk around without getting sideswiped by some overweight, over-tall person of dubious personal hygiene carrying the ubiquitous bergen on their back.  

  

The organisers -the Milton Hundred club- did their usual great job with their distinctive yellow tee-shirts nearly always within LOS if you needed them. 

The traders were a mixed bunch but a new one that I was waiting to see was Commission Figurines, the people who produce the 6mm mdf chaps. These are even better in the flesh so to speak and I would have bought some only the three current ranges -Napoleonic, Marian Roman and ACW I already have covered in Irregular. But I was impressed with the 6mm city block ruins and especially the railway line, both soon-to-be-released onto a suspecting wargaming public. The railway line will be great for ACW onwards. Now all I have to do is find out if B&Q make bendy wooden beading that I use for embankments! 

The games were also a mixed bag ranging from a Safari style game where a herd of animals had to cross the board while avoiding predators right up to a rather nice Star Wars land game with all the iconic items on show. Others included one based on the film Reign of Fire, a Lego Zombie hunt, Maidstone's impressive, home built ship for the Zeebrugge Raid Game and a rather nice looking 25mm WW II board with some tasty looking buildings and models. 

However, my favourite -being a devoted 6mm-ite- was Postie's Rejects WW I action on the Marne. The table was great with rolling hills, loads of trees, hedged lanes and some well painted buildings. The whole thing was set of by Postie's home made observation balloon in the rear of the German positions. (See pic below).

Now the reason for the uppercase local. Left the show in plenty of time to get my bus home -35 minutes on the bus, 5 minutes walk. Simples...in a perfect world. Sittingbourne has roadworks all around the railway station where the bus stops are, or rather used to be. When I saw a bus shoot past by the roadworks warning bells sounded. Checked the area and found the new bus stop layout...and it was my bus that had gone by. To cap it all, it was the last of only three that run on a Sunday. No probs, I'll get the train. Trotted back to the station to find out that there was engineering works all over and that buses were criss-crossing the area to move passengers. Eventually I walked into the house at just after quarter past seven, a nine mile, 40 minute journey under normal circumstances ended up taking me nearly three and a half hours!

Anyway, here are some of the pics I took.