Lots of new toys

Today saw me receive 32 kilos of metal from Griffin moulds! That's a lot of figures believe me.
The vast majority are the new releases for Crann Tara Miniatures- the biggest addition being Scheithers Freikorps to accompany Charles Grants forthcoming book on small actions of the Seven Years War.
With the upcoming release of the second edition of Musket and Tomahawks and the ever popular Sharpes Practice I can see me painting quite a few of these to play some alternate Seven Years War battles.

In addition Richard also made the first two,pieces for my charging French Infantry - I can see me putting these to good use in the French Indian War - speaking of which work has started on the Hurons.🤣

I guess one advantage of having your own figure company is that you can indulge yourself a little - to that end I did some conversions - Government Highland Grenadiers and French Dragoons ( Mounted and dismounted) in tricorns. Now whilst the Highlanders are nowhere as near as good as Richards Sculpts I'm happy with them and they will fill some gaps all in all quite a good end to the month - next task is to paint some!

This War Without an Enemy

Steve and I dabbling with doing some ECW !!! and were discussing a campaign system, now it's not often I point people to purchases etc but this Kickstarter looks interesting and the graphics are nice etc.
It may adapt very nicely to a campaign for figures.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/483438961/this-war-without-an-enemy/description

It's only running two weeks but for those ECW enthusiasts maybe worth a check?

Workbench cornucopia

As is my usual m.o. I keep my interest and mojo! going by doing a variety of projects so since New Year I've spent some time doing 3d printing -
In 15mm the Hummelbaugh farm from Gettysburg, and some Viking Longboats

In 28mm I've started printing the Trostle House from Gettysburg. I'm also determined to finish the Jacobite rebellion project this year so I'm back to painting Highlanders.

I also couldn't resist trying some of museum miniatures new 15mm Z range Greek hoplites - these guys are computer designed, moulded and cast in metal. They are lovely to say the least I also got a few Indians to add to my army - excellent.

Couldn't resist doing them as Spartans in homage to the original 300 Spartans movie 😀

Happy New Year - Let's keep moving forward

Happy New Year to you all. I hope you have all had a decent festive break and that this year is kind to you all.

I know a lot of  people tend to look back at what they've achieved or not and whilst it's important to always know where we've come from and how we got here, I tend to think that looking forward is where the time should be spent!

If I started looking back I'd only get worked up on what I didn't do anyway 🤣

My main priority for this year has to be finishing the Jacobite project, I need to finish the forces for Culloden and add some individually based units for some of the smaller actions I intend to fight.

Charles Grants forthcoming book on small actions of the Seven Years War will see me painting Freikorps, Hussars etc to fight these actions and it will be nice to see some of the exotic and colourful pieces get a real purpose.

This year will also see me take Crann Tara full on itnomthe French Indian War and I would really like to try and paint these units as they are made, with the forthcoming release of  the second edition of musket and tomahawks I'm really looking forward to getting back into this - but on this occasion using my own figures 😀

As you are aware I've spent the last few years disposing of large chunks of my 28mm collections and terrain partly as an exercise in refocusing and reducing the number of periods etc I play.

I aim to continue painting the 15mm Ancients, War of 1812 and ACW as side shows - with the exception of the Ancient- I'm painting figures for set battles/scenarios and upon completion will move onto the next ( eating the elephant) (can I still say that?)

I would also like to find some more time to getting back to some board gaming - I have a pretty good collection of games and they can provide a nice diversion to figure gaming.

I the meantime here's a couple of pics of pieces that I've finished basing.
The Austrians are a full battalion of resin printed figures - that includes the Mounted Officer - they've painted up ok I think.

Then there's the dismounted Languedoc Dragoons - the horse holders are on the bench. These chaps will be seeing action shortly!