An ECW day and some good news

 I had planned on doing some painting today but my good lady informed me she had some deliveries due and could I make sure I listened out for them. As I usually paint in the hobby room in the loft and at present I’m not quick enough to get down before the delivery driver disappears I decided to make the final push on my ECW armies.

The vast majority have been painted by Lee Gramson and are mainly Peter Pig with some Blue Moon characters and civilians. I was surprised how many I had to still base but they have all been finished today.

All the artillery pieces were made and I pressed on to assemble the baggage train, these pieces are from Essex and whilst ok the moulds are starting to show their age as quite a bit of flash and cleaning up mould lines had to be completed.

Anyway the Royalist and Parliamentarian armies are effectively complete, just need to finish bases, fit some more standards and colour their edges and then Edgehill can be fought! Lee has started on the Covenanters with Montrose to follow.

Photos aren’t brilliant as light is fading quick.

Work area for the day

Wagons etc from Essex being assembled and cleaned, Blue moon camp pieces letting ink dry!

Royalist foot, artillery etc 

Basing sand drying King Charles, Generals and more horse!

Royalist horse almost finished

Clubmen, commanded shot and miscellaneous bits!

So this project end is in sight and hopefully a game shortly.

I’m pleased to report I saw my cancer specialist on Tuesday and the pathology reports were good no cancer found in lymph nodes and tumour was all out so no further treatment required just regular checks for the next five years. I feel pretty upbeat and almost feel I’ve been given a second chance! I’m certainly looking at a lot of things in a very different light.

A better update next week, I aim to play a board game (Quatre Bras) and finish off this little lot! Take care

I’m back - and doing bits !

 Thought it was time to give a quick blog update. First many thanks to all those people who wished me well through here, Facebook etc. The operation took place 3 weeks ago and went well in fact they discharged me after 48 hours! Much to my wife’s shock 🤣 however recovery seems to be going well and I see the specialist on the 25th for the pathology results and next steps.

First 7-10 days I pretty much just binged on movies, tv and books but bit by bit I’ve been itching to get some painting done. So I’ve finished another Elite minis early French unit and unit 8 is under way, this is still gloss varnished but I’ve decided I will be matting them down

I’ve also been busy basing the ECW figures Lee has been painting for me. Tomorrow will see basing material go on and another count up of what I have.

I had hoped to do my refight of Edgehill this month on the anniversary, however I’m not certain I will be able to lift the boards etc. but we shall see!

I’ve also been plodding away at the Warlord ‘epic’ Napoleonic now my target for this is to do Quatre Bras using DBN but with each base of infantry being around 500 men, so around a battalion. The French need 33 bases and I’ve finished 22 so not many more to go! Lee Gramson on his blog http://napoleonictherapy.blogspot.com/ has got a really firm hold on the DBN project and is putting standards and command on each base however I’m not being as restricted as that as I also intend to use these guys to try some other rule sets.

Now I know the British heavies weren’t at Quatre Bras but I wanted to paint them and looking to the future I’m sure I will need them. The mass of French infantry look quite imposing.

Some time ago I also bought some Wofun 18mm Seven Years War pieces to fight the battles of Frederick the Great, I hadn’t done anything with them since buying but now seems a good opportunity to make a start. I had forgotten I’d asked the guys at Wofun if they could give me some samples of the Russians they do, on checking I’ve found they’ve given me four sheets of troops - 3 of Russian Infantry and one of Russian Hussars so that’s 6 regiments of foot (48 figures each) and 2 regiments of horse (27figures each) so around €70 worth of freebies! Very generous. So I will start on the protagonists and see where we go - at the moment I’m tempted to use these for Charles Grants the Wargame. However Mark Dudley is writing a DBN variant for the SYW so they may get some play testing for those as well.

Here’s the Russians I’ve based so far, as usual I willl ink the edges and do some scenic son the bases 

Even with customs fees etc I still think these pieces have huge potential for gamers who don’t want to paint more armies and just want to game. They’re now doing 10mm Napoleonic and ACW which look most impressive.

Finally if anyone wishes to purchase and unopened copy of Musket and Pike board game - 7 battles of the ECW it’s available for £40 I made a faux pas and preordered this and forgot I’d also preordered the dual pack which has the battles of Gustavia Adolphus included and two extra ECW battles .

So quite busy and lots to look forward to. I’m not making plans at the moment just doing what I fancy each day!

Take care everyone