From MartijnN: Minifigs! Crimean War no less.

I have not been very productive last week as family matters occupied most of my time. However, at last I have produced something. Which provides me with an excuse to bore you with some more nostalgia.

When I was a schoolboy, we used to visit my gran. There was not much to do around her place for little children, but one of my uncles still lived with her and he had a great collection of books. One book that had a mesmerizing (some might say fatal) attraction for me was this:

 In particular, I was thrilled by this chapter:

Eventually, I got my own copy. This was the first I learned about the Crimean War and I was fascinated. Believe it or not, this war is not well known in the Netherlands. But I was fascinated. French and British fighting Russia? Together? In some far-away peninsula? The Charge of the Light Brigade? Of course, the Crimea was part of the USSR then and firmly behind the Iron Curtain...

Did I tell you I was fascinated? Even more when I managed to lay my hand on this boardgame, which had an interesting historical background booklet which I must have virtually memorized.

Long story (a little) shorter, when sometime in the 80s Minifigs announced a new series of 15mm Crimean War figures some of my friends and me teamed up to persuade our moderately friendly local game store to order some for us. Frankly, when they arrived, after a very long delay, they proved something of a disappointment; the French were in full dress uniform which was not worn in the field, and the poses were a little awkward for wargaming . Still, I painted up some and we had a few games. And then I moved, lost touch with my club and the figures ended up in a box. Which was where I found them, including these half-painted ones:

So I decided to finish them after thirty-odd years, maintaining the style from back then, and to base them for Volley & Bayonet (as I don't see me using Newbury Fastplay 19th century anymore...).

The flag is from Revo, another blast from the past I suppose.

All of this meant, of course, that I also had to rebase the other figures in my collection, with which I have made a start accordingly (the new arrivals in the middle):

The paintjob on some of these figures is far from stellar, usually because I was experimenting with home-made washes and those experiments did not always work out, but I really am not up to repainting them all. I have still got lots of Russians and more French to rebase.... And all of this is not really reducing my lead pile either.

I am quite happy to find that the Challenge really encourages me to take up some projects I didn't even remember anymore! I wonder what's up next? Stay tuned!