Friday 20 February 2015

Work Bench Thursday 19/02/15

I'm away in Scotland next week so no workbench next week so I've been trying to get things finished
18 of Manchesters Foot are done and varnished the rest will be undercoated today.
Finished some more ansar and some 15mm Thracian foot for the Macedonians. Went retro on theses to the old days of WRG - black tunics and off white shields to show they're mercenaries.


Also started blistering the stock to get ready for Salute!! Wishful thinking maybe but I may sell some figures.



Friday 13 February 2015

More recruits for the Sudan and Workbench Thursday 12/02/15

It's been a fairly hectic week on the domestic front so painting etc has been fairly hit and miss.
First up finished and based some more Ansar so they are starting to take shape - want/need about twice as many bases as I have to start gaming - that's of course when I get the Imperials done!

Carlo sent me a scratch built paddle steamer so I want o get that based and some crew painted more pictures on that as the project progresses!



On the workbench - just about finished the Royal Ecosse - the pressure is on to get more figures painted for Salute and at the same time I want to get them done as units for gaming!

A few more 15mm Macedonians, yet more Ansar and the poor coach which always seems to get pushed to the back. Maybe at the weekend I will get a bit more done - need a nice driver for it though.


There's also a picture of my last set of sculpts - using Richards dollies. This was a British infantry chap for my assault team! and what I call my Dutch. I'm getting better but still a lot of mistakes in the detail. I may have reached the 1970's style of sculpting!! Still a way to go.


Thursday 5 February 2015

Workbench Thursday

Thought I'd be bang on this week with some pics of the progress this last week. Been quite good.
Finished and based the 1st Squadron of British Dragoons, the first 18 Royal Ecosse and started the next 12 to finish the battalion.

Aim to take some better pictures on the gaming table later this week.
Also finished quite a lot more Ansar and based them all, just the white edges of the flags to paint over- hate it when gamers leave them on!

Also a picture of the wonderful gift Carlo  (with pyjamas through the desert) sent me - a scratch built paddle steamer :) - Thanks Carlo.

Will look to get it based and some crew painted 'pdq'.

Finally some Macedonian Phalangites from West Wind - again painted for speed and aim to get a 36-40 element army done for Big Battle DBA to keep me going until I get more time to build a 'proper ' army.






Tuesday 3 February 2015

Winter is Over - The new Show season is upon us Vapnartak 2015

Whilst i didn't manage to secure a trade stand at the York show this has become a compulsory trip,
the show has gone from strength to strength and for me marks the beginning of the end of winter and the start of the Show season.

This year I arrived at the York race course a tad early ( due to an incorrect bad weather report) fortunately I got straight in - about 9.40 and therefore had around an hour to look around before the hordes descended.

I have to admit I had very little on my shopping list - paint and bases. Although I had ordered a lot of purpose built streams from Andy at Last Valley for the AMG game at Partizan in May, two large boxes in fact!!! Despite seeing loads of lovely new shiny toys my impulse buying, for once did not take over.

There were some great games of which I have taken pictures of a few but not nearly enough to do the show justice.

True to form by 10.45 the place was buzzing and by 11.15 I retreated to the bar where I remained until around 2.00

But I met lots of old and new friends - Robbi Baker - sculptor and I guess we could call him a silver surfer now :), a cornucopia of gentlemen from the AMG forum together with many other gamers I have met over the years.

As one of my colleagues pointed out we've only got two more years and we can get in free for being over 60!!!

I understand around 1500 people attended the show and I feel this has now become the best show in the North.

The pics below present just a very small taste of games, I did take some pics of Mark Dudley's 40mm Blastoff Bridge participation game but somehow managed to delete them. What was good with this was Mark's young son was playing and through the day a number of youngsters had a go - with or without fathers. Great to see an introduction to historical gaming at the show.

Favourite game of the show was the Raid on Leith.








The Curtey's miniatures lads put on an excellent dark age game - pics taken before the troops deployed.