Pre Challenge Warm Up

 The 13th Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge starts in 6 days and i've not painted anything for 3 months due to my shoulder injury. So I thought I'd have a practice, I was very rusty.

1st up 2 battalions of Royal Ecossais. These will form the superior troops in my imagiNation Scots 7YW army and 1 battalion can be added to French army if needed (there was only 1 in French army formed by exile Scots)

Unlike the rest of my Scots, these have European dress

I have bought a copy of 02hundred and as it takes place at night I thought I'd paint them in grey scale. These are the 2 simplest sentries (Wargames Foundry make nice sentry types)

The only colour is the helmet badge

Overall quite pleased, although the bases need more work

Also had a delivery of toys today, I really don't need anymore toys but Northstar were running a mystery box and mine had £82 worth of figs and paint for £45. There was only 1 pack I couldn't use, ironically 7YW Austrians. Otherwise loads of pulp, colonial and WW2 figs. Bargain

Things to Buy when you can't go to Partizan

 So this weekend was The Other Partizan and Dave and I we due represent the Old Guard to put on a large Vietnam table with all our collections out and loads of action. We had been frantically finishing off bits. A review of the show layout put us near to the front door and quite close to another Old Guard club. I didn't know there was another Old Guard and they have been running for 40 years. A breif geography and history explanation later and we have done the honourable thing and changed the club name to the North Riding Wargames Club. I'm not from Yorkshire, thankfully for all concerned, and don't really understand what a Riding is or was.

So we are ready to go and I trap a nerve in my shoulder a couple of days before. If you have done it yourself, you have my understanding, if you haven't well it hurts like a Melon Farmer. I have effectively been bedridden for over a week now. I can walk about but after 10 minutes it hurts and I can't sit down. So no going to Partizan for me. I was gutted.

Ian from the NRWC stepped in to take my hotel room and Dave and he went down with 1/2 the collection. Dave kept sending me photos of the night before and I was both annoyed and pleased.

Speaking Dave with week he said he was amazingly busy and didn't have time to go shopping. Everyone loved the game. his report is here  and the "official" video is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHitwGWuemc (we are at 21 mins in).

So what do you do when you are stuck at home with loads of unspent money. I went online shopping for all the things I wanted to buy there

So this is the stash. Starting at top middle and working clockwise we have

1. 02hundred rules. There is a loophole in the purchasing of these. You can buy the rules as a pdf but can't get the cards or markers. This is an error. I wrote to Grey for Game and they gave me a discount of the cost of the pdf from the hard copy.

2.  3 figures from MrLees. Kyle has closed down the store so I picked up a couple of figs from the sale and 1 i'd wanted to buy since they opened. Time for some posh painting

3. Atrizan design commandos for 02 hundred

4. Tiger miniatures WW1 Turkish Cavalry. Cos my Turkish army isn't big enough - well it is but you know.

5. Foundry German Sentries for 02hundred.

6.Warbases buildings and bases for 02hundred. Plus their cool pre-printed ponds

Dave also dropped off my small ColBill order that he picked up from Partizan. WW1 Turkish Officers, Australian Light Horse officer, couple of boars and some African warriors. All to complete some armies.

Hope you are all well and see you at Battleground next month

Christmas Wrap Up

 With the Challenge and Christams rapidly approaching it's been prepping and finishing off stuff.

1st up my aged mother is running out of things she wants. She does have a great interest in all things mythological, esp Ray Harryhausen movies and so for the last few years I have been painting Greek figures for her, she even has a display cabinet.

1st a simple Spartan warrior. Need someone to kill the monsters. Not a fan of Spartans, too fascist for my taste.

Next a Minotaur. Actually it's a Foundry gladiator with bull mask but my mum won't know the difference.

Now we have Pegasus, again Foundry and a lovely figure

Finally we have one of the titans named Triton. Mum will think he's Poseidon, like everybody else does. THis is a big unit approx 100mm high

THat should keep her happy, pretty much run out of Greek types now, so I've bought her a book on Japanese Mythology and have some thoughts of Arabian Nights stuff - Sinbad and all that.

Every year a try and buy a handful of figures to test out my painting skills. Usually they are Mr Lees or Hasslefree. This year I bought a Grail Knight from their Artemis Black range

It's brilliant figure with oodles of detail and a big 32mm metal figure. Love the shield and will buy more after Christmas

Finally Dunsterforce and Ottoman troops have arrived or are in transit. in the meantime I've been trawling through the lead pile and found another figure to use

This is actually a Partizan freebie ( I think) and he was wearing an overcoat but I removed some of that and now he looks like he is shirtsleeves and shorts. Will add to a HMG team.

So for the new 3 months I'm painting 28mm WW1 Britsh, Turks and Azeri Militia; 10mm Italian Wars and 28mm ACW. Should keep me busy for a couple of months.

Have a good Christmas and a normal 2021

What 7 things do all East African Slavers Need

I've completed the Foundry Zanzibari slavers

Bad guy with a whip

Really old bronze cannon

Err - a big dinosaur (can't remember who)

3 little dinosaurs (same company i can't remember)

And a gun emplacement - from Barrage

I think that should cover all eventualities when moving slave about the continent

Slavers from Zanzibar

Over the summer I stopped by the Wargames Foundry office and shop in Little Stoke - very much 2nd star on the right and straight on til morning. It was fun, they gave me a cup of tea and I spent £100. Fair exchange I thought.
Since then I've done no painting at all but the challenge in looming and I needed to get my eye back in. Half the packs I bought were Zanzibari slavers and they are excellent figures full of character

I really enjoyed painting these, mojo risin'. These will work well in my very generic Muslim army and especially in Back of Beyond 1920's campaign I am building up. Got the Afghans (inc. these) and the Bolsheviks (in post)

Sometimes My Hobby is a Bit Like Work

The Old Guard are a bloody nightmare. They keep giving me ideas. Pete has started painting 28mm Naps (very nice). Dave has millions of 28mm French Naps (very nice). John is keen to do the Peninsular War in 28mm. I've never done Naps, they just seem impossible to paint well and you need thousands and thousands.
It gets worse, I bought some in the flea market a few months ago. Just over 4 boxes of Victrix for £40. So I have an army, I have friends who want to to play. I had planned for this years Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge I had planned to paint fewer figures to a higher standard. A perfect storm. Bugger.
So here we are. I have added to the collection with a box of Perry Light Dragoons, a regiment of Warlord Portuguese infantry and some bits to make up full regiments of Cavalry from Foundry on my visit on Tuesday. I've spend a couple of days making up figures

3 regiments of foot. A mix of metals from a Northstar lucky bag and Victrix Peninsular and Waterloo centre and flank companies. Obviously the Waterloo figs have the wrong hats but using oilskin covered shakos and bare heads I've made 3 full 24 man regiments. I really really hate making up plastics with 2 separate arms that connect to a single gum. It's the chore. Manged to do most with marching arms - much easier

Portuguese regiment (all marching - doddle and nice figs), Highlander Regiment (Camerons) with a couple of metal figs from a different Northstar lucky bag. The general is Perry Miniatures

Perry Light Dragoons. These should have been Hussars but I bought the wrong box. There are enough men to make over 2 regiments but only 14 horses. Luckily I had some spare horses so I made saddles, sheepskins and bedrolls out of Milliput - really pleased with it. These are 1812 onwards pattern uniforms but they will be fine. Officer is from Perry Brtish Nap Command.

Finally the other 1/2 of the Dragoons box, in Peninsular war uniform and 3 command figures from Foundry.

I have enough figures left for a couple of regiments with later uniforms suitable for Waterloo and 3 foot artillery pieces that I will need to make up.

I done the boring and annoying bit. Now the really hard bit, will keep me out of trouble. Also ona really happy note I've been promoted at work to senior management. I'm in charge of post graduate studies in my new larger school. Yeah me.

Holidays are here

I'm on holiday for the next 2 weeks. I left Newcastle on Friday night in the pouring rain and traveled south to see friends for the weekend. The weather was glorious and we did loads of stuff
Saturday we visited the Shuttleworth aircraft collection near Bedford. Really good considering I don't like aircraft much

WW1 - obviously

A terrifying collection of WW1 aircraft sparkplugs

Biplane

Biplanes between the wars

Little Nellie - the original

Lysander - very menacing

Also saw a Hurricane land, obviously no photo

On Sunday we visited Bletchley Park - home of the WW2 code breakers. Very Very Interesting, complicated and not very photogenic

Collection of valves, almost a terrifying as the sparkplugs

Yesterday me and Dave went to Warwick Castle, Emma was overcome with history and ran off to work. A great and intact castle. It has the worlds largest working Trebuchet, 18m high, weighing 30 tonnes.

The sun was in exactly the wrong spot to take a decent photo so this is the rear view. It chucked a 20kg stone 250m at 150mph (excuse the mixing of metric and imperial). Very very awesome. The falconry display was really great with a pair of Stellar's Sea Eagles, a Lammergeier and the smallest bird was a bald eagle.

All were great, quite expensive but value for money.

I drove back today and stopped of at Wargames Foundry in East Stoke. Really quirky place to find. It was being decorated but they did give me a proper cup of tea, very apt for July 4th. They have their whole range on display at show prices so I bought some stuff

Normans - I accidently got sent some by Foundry and they didn't want them back so today I bought some more. Now have a nice Saga force. just need some cavalry

Ligh Dragoon command - with my Perry Plastics box and some random metals I have enough for 2 regiments.

Zanzibaris - nice for Africa and NW Frontier

Dooly set for colonial types - I'm building up my battlefield vignettes

Great weekend. i arrived home this afernoon and it was still raining in Newcastle

Challenge Update and some new air support

Challenge moves into its last 2 weeks and I will move into 1st place tomorrow with a massive 400pt+ sumission (equivalent to 80x28mm figs in a week.
Last year a won a raffle on Ray Rousell's blog and received approx 30 old school Saxon Warriors. I really like the figs, they have personality, and they were free

Faces didn't work well on these

In 1986 I bought some Saxons from Essex Miniatures. Last week I painted them

Finally on the Saxon front I painted the Saxon types I've acquired from NorthStar lucky bags

Last year I bought some NWF figures from Foundry but when they arrived they were Normans. I spoke to Foundry and they resupplied the missing figures and allowed me to keep the figs, which was nice

Last weekend I had my 50th birthday party and the Friday overnight guests went down to the flea market and I bought this for £8.

I'll stick a Lewis gun on it and I have some more VBCW air support

Next weekend its Albanich in Dumfries and I'm helping Matt Crump with his Sealion Game. Then on Sunday it's off down for a games day with the Old Guard, including a massive Impetus game. However my car failed its MOT on  Friday and it may throw a spanner in the works. Shouldn't be a problem as it's getting fixed on Wednesday but I may be skint as it electrical and between £70 and £800 depending on the problem.

It would be better it I had one of these

Let There be Light

About 6 months ago my main desk light broke so I've been managing with this set up

The light was very focused, not very bright and took up half my desk

So I bought a daylight light from Sewing online (no sniggering at the back). It was about £43 and came today, 3 day turnaround.

It's great, kinda like having cataracts removed.

The Analogue Hobbies VII painting challenge is plodding along nicely and I've painted these partizans

New commander for the Royalists

66th Rifles for Zulu War

Back to painting, Hopefully I'll get a Zulu game in this weekend