HOTT, Fiasco and bits and pieces

Once a year I travel to Brompton for the Good, Bad and Ugly! Hordes of the Things Tournament.!

For me it's a good chilled day with like minded people and allows me to paint something that's a bit daft.

This year I painted up Alternative Armies 'Seasonal Army' so Jack Frost leads his maniacal snowmen, ginger bread men etc. The church was picked up from The Works and painted and suitably ' snowed up ' by me.

This years event took place on the 20th October at the Rugby club - great venue.

So with minimal planning I ended up winning the tournament, best army and best camp 🤣 a clean sweep. Big thanks to all involved and to Bob Carter for organising the North East leg of this worldwide tournament.

The 27th October saw me pay a visit to the Fiasco show at Leeds. I have to admit that within a short time of entering the Stygian gloom of the hall I remembered why I stopped trading there and stopped attending. 

For me the venue isn't conducive to encouraging anyone to stay and when I arrived ( about 11.am) it appeared to be quite busy.  There wasn't any really outstanding games  ( in my opinion) and after a chat to a few people I left for a coffee and didn't return.

Pete Berry of Baccus miniatures has had a bit of debate on Facebook about this show and in general about the future of shows, bottom line is with the exception of Salute which is acknowledged as a mega trade show then the majority of others need to change in order to accommodate the changing gaming population- Hammerhead and Partizan I feel are two of the best shows by encouraging participation games.

I fear Fiasco may go the way of the Triples if things don't change just doing same old for 20+ years I don't think is good enough any more!

Finally I'm not going to bore you with anymore 3D printing - well not this week. 

I've managed to get finished the first two squadrons of Saxon Cuirassiers, riders painted by Steve Allen the rest by me. I tried 'contrast paints' on the horses - not bad but I still prefer 'oils'

Finally I've started a new 'winter project' more of that next post

A little more printing

In between being hit by a chest infection and settling in at the 'pod' for the Crann Tara business I've managed to squeeze in a little more printing. The FDM printer has mainly been used to print dolls house furniture! To occupy the dolls house I'm building for the granddaughters but the resin printer has seen action, first to print off some 28mm Hungarians Dan has made for me.
Second to print the 40mm RHA crew that Dan has designed for Ian Smith.
All come out rather nice

Breaking the silence - Fire as she bears!

Thought it was about time I announced my return to the UK - actually I got back from seeing my son in Chicago on the 16th after a really good 12 day break. This was then followed last Thursday to a visit to the club for a catch up where I caught a chest infection which has laid me low most of this week!

Never mind onwards and upwards - before I was struck low I spent last Wednesday and Thursday moving Crann Tara Miniatures into new premises but more of that will appear on the other blog.

Most of you can't have failed to see Warlord Games announcement of its forthcoming 1/700th scale Napoleonic Naval game, now those that follow my blog know that I have a very nice collection of Langton 1/1200 th scale ships which occasionally take sail for a game but I'm always conscious of my ham  fistedness damaging them so this announcement piqued my interest. Now at the same time Simon Mann on wargaming 3D released a series of 1/700th scale files of various named ships for the period some of these are free and some just a few dollars.

To top all that Suturnalia Studios ran a Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/saturnaliastudios/fire-and-sails
For ships, terrain and rules the ships are 1/650 so the small ships are fine the larger ships  need printing at 92% to make them the same size as those from warlord. So it looks like my ability to fight larger actions and not worry about damage will be fulfilled.
To be expected I've printed some bits and pieces off by way of testing the prints are a mix of this from Wargaming 3D and the KS and ive included a Warlord frigate. Last photo is a few of the buildings I've printed off. Printing sails in two parts and gluing together is a bit of a trial but I'm getting there. So about an 90 minutes to,print a couple of frigates or a 74 for pennies . The fleet starts to assemble 🤣

Battle of Maidstone redux!

I have just been finishing my next article for the Wargames Annual and it is the second part of the proposed Invasion of England 1744.
Now I did a brief report of the Battle I fought on here which will form the basis of the article however what I did forget at the time was that iPad photos just don't cut it when it comes to publishing in books or magazines so this week I set it all up again and took a new set of far better photos, couple of teasers below.

   All in all 90+ photos - can't see Charles using them all otherwise it would be a Crann Tara special.

Off to the States shortly to see my son, last time I visit Chicago as he moves to Denver in October so next year will see a visit to a new state.

Unfortunately printing and painting has slowed down these last couple of weeks as I've taken the leap in renting a small office/studio to run the business from it will allow me a little more space and should stop distractions🤣 So lots of preparation in getting ready to move stock etc.

I have been dabbling with GW contrast paints - mixed results as I expected a lot depending on the colours and undercoat but I shall persevere.

Workbench update

Sorry for the short break - real life got in the way I'm afraid.
That doesn't mean to say I've been idle though - the Vauban continues to grow, 2 bastions done and work has started on walls.

I also did a couple of 15mm buildings for a game the other Sunday, the ruined chateau is only base coated hope to finish that next week

I won't mention the 'fairy' doors my wife has got me to print for the grandkids!!

On the painting front more horses, Highlanders and 15mm Ancients are all work in progress.

Finally had to say good bye to our last dog 😪 Poppy was 13 and was primarily my wife's dog I was there for the walks and feeding although later in life I found she liked coming with me to the local pub.

A character she will be missed

Just for Lee and Tamsin (and anyone else interested)

Ok some more printing projects - Tamsin enquired about printing the 1/100 scale Bergman files off thingiverse at 28mm scale

Airborne radio jeep, I got the orientation slightly wrong so front wheels need a bit of repair but the next one I do will be fine.

Next Lee asked about the Shermans- the Sherman and Bren Carrier are both printed in resin, the Sherman worked out at just over a £1 the Bren about 0.32p.

Then I did a Kangaroo ram on the fdm - cost 0.38 p and photographed against a commercial one £4.00 retail! Yeah on the fdm you can see some lines and they can be minimised but for me by the time painted etc and on the table they will hardly be visible.

The bastion by the way cost about £15 but I'm going to increase the'infill' which could reduce the cost to around £12 - not bad I think.

Bastion finished

i know you may be mighty bored of this by now 🤣 However the final parts for the bastion are done, I'm well impressed.
I shall now do some walks etc and let you have a rest before there's any more printing updates.