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. 

     

About time for another post.

I suppose it's about time for another post.
The French-Italian wars project has not leaped forward at the speed I had hoped but I still have 5x48 figure pike blocks, 2x15 gendarmes, 1x15 generic Italian knights, 1x30 foot arquebusiers and the same of sword & buckler chaps and 1x9 stradiots. Nearly finished are 2x9 mounted crossbows and 4 artillery pieces. So that is ongoing...still and the holiday deadline is very rapidly approaching.

Now if you recall I said that I would not paint any of my Early WWII stuff until the above project is as complete as I have figures for and that is still the case...almost. It's true I haven't painted anything but sittinig in the garden during the gorgeous sunshine of our April summer I managed to clean up, sand and base everything and black spray undercoat the Germans. Took about a minute to do all 60 odd vehicles and 17 artillery and infantry bases. Then I used a grey primer spray on all the vehicles as a base coat. I know it's a bit light so I'm going to give them a couple of black washes to darken the grey, then do the dark brown element of the camo before another black wash to soften and do a bit of merging of the colours.

Reading a blog the other day, this one in fact:

http://ww2talk.com/index.php?threads%2Fthe-battle-and-massacre-of-wormhout-28th-may-1940.20061%2F

I recognised a number of places pictured from our holiday, so they will be revisited that's for sure. Also, we have since found out that May 8th is a national victroy celebration day with parades and stuff all over the place. I hope there's one in our area.

So, still all fired up for Early War while painting the F-I Wars chaps. There's dedication and discipline for you.

A bientot.

My Narnia

Someone on one of the blogs I frequent shared some pictures of his study and asked others to do the same. Now my 'study' is also my library, wargames room, storage room; painting, building and writing room. So I thought I'd share some pictures of my multi-functional set-up. Unfortuantely the pics are a bit dark even when enhanced and the place could do with a bit of a tidy.

 Looking into the room from the bottom of the stairs. Computer desk is on the right, on the screen can be seen a background of the Chinggis Qan metal statue in Mongolia. painting desk is on the left. Top of pic are some of my dvd's.

 My 10, 15 and 25mm figures and some terrain in this storage unit. Just out of shot at the bottom are all my 6mm armies stored in A4 rigid plastic boxes.

To the right of my computer desk is the major part of my library with the filing cabinets underneath. the stairs up are just to the right.

 Moving on to the right there are the stairs up, more books and the top of my drop-leaf table. The big picture on the left is of Prince Rupert and his brother Maurice that I found in an antique store in Leek, Staffordshire. At the bottom of the stairs is a framed picture of Bobby Moore (from West Ham United FC) along with his signature next to it. (Christmas prezzie from a friend).

On the right of the last picture is a small cubby-hole that goes around behind the chimney breast and under the stairs. In there is a small cupboard and my four tier plastic drawer set for my unpainted chaps.

The older you get, the quicker time passes!

Well, flippin' heck, don't time fly when you realise you haven't posted anything for a while...a long while; very remiss of me. Life is moving on and the French-Italian Wars project is coming on slowly, so far I have:

2 units of 15 gendarmes
2 units of 48 Landsknecte pike
1 unit of 44 Swiss pike
1 unit of 40 Italian pike
1 unit of 15 Italian mtd knights
1 unit of 30 Italian dis-mtd arquebusiers
1 unit of 30 Spanish Sword and Buckler types
1 unit of 9 Stradiots

Each of the units is made up of 3 40x20mm bases and all are from H&R.

I've also now got about 95% of my WWII Early War British, German and French armies at 1:5 divisional strength but I am holding back on painting them until the French-Italian chaps are finished. This should take me up to the end of the year if everything pans out.
   However...
   About a year ago I was contacted by Stephan at Rapier Miniatures (known as Fredbloggs on the LOA forum) and asked if I had any research on the Mongols for an upcoming range. (Silly man, asking if I had any research on the Mongols.) Anyway, long story much shortened, the other day a package arrived from Rapier and inside were two of their Small Armies of Mongols. They were almost begging me to paint them and seeing how lovely they looked I offered to paint some for his trade stand so here are some taster pics. All are cklickable for a warts-and-all image.

 Army command

 L/MC firing bow

 L/M Cav with lance

 Unit command

 LC/MC loading bow

 Armoured chaps on armoured horses

 As above pianted as keshig

Now of course, I have a slight dilemma, do I carry on painting the Renaissance chaps, change to WW II or think blow it, I'll go with the Mongols. Seeing as I already have a Mongol 6mm army in Irregular I reckon they can wait and I will carry on with my plan for the year. But, if Rapier bring out Russians, Khwarizmians, Polish, Hungarians, Cumani, or Song Chines I might have to re-evaluate my position. 

   One thing that should ber mentioned is that we are going back to Wormhouldt in a couple of months for another break and, knowing me, I will be all fired up (pun unintended) for my Early War project. Enough of this idle chatter, I'd better get a wiggle on with the Rennaisance to get as many done as I can before the hol.