From PeteF: More Minifigs! Rehabbing Artillery. Basing Nassau - lots of Nassau.

That was a lot of flocking

This week's hobby task has seen more progress on the Quatres Bras project. First, I finished off repainting three French Foot Artillery guns with crews. The gunners and guns were pretty banged up so I repainted them. I've got some infantry in the pipeline from the same source - and I think I'll strip the paint in future - Simple Green does a great job on old lead.

Second, I decided to base/flock the Nassau infantry - five battalions plus a bunch of extra stands for when I want to play them as big battalions. Some of these troops were loose and some were on card bases that my brother did. I decided to keep these by varnishing them before white glue and flocking. I experimented on some of them with gesso. They seem very solid now - we'll see how they hold up with wargaming.

The Nassauers were all painted by my dad. I love the look of Minifigs and his style of painting them - all humbrols from tiny pots in the pre-acrylic days when the study, if not the whole house, smelled of turpentine. My research has revealed one problem - all these Nassauers are in green uniforms - 2 battalions (the Orange Nassau regiment) wore the standard blue Dutch uniforms. I do have some dutch that I could use. Or Maybe I could do a speculative flag with "Suck it button counters" in dutch.  I don't think anyone will notice either way.

Sorting out the Nassauers prompted me to inventory the Anglo Allied army to see what I have here and what is still in the UK - and whether all the dutch militia battalions are represented - a closer inspection of the filing system reveals that perhaps a few of them are under-manned - am I going to have to paint up some Dutch as well French to recreate Quatres Bras? The plan for the troops still in the UK was to bring most of them over on my next trip - but now that's looking like a long way into the future.

All Eight Battalions with some extras - ready to be transported to the battle

from RayR 15mm Hovels - European Buildings

Its about time I put up something new up that I've painted during the  lockdown.

I've had these collection of Hovels buildings for a few years now, I bought them at a show all prepainted. I've given them all a new coat of paint as they were all previously painted the same dull beige colour.

What with the plastic houses I picked up at a show a while ago, I've enough buildings for a extremely large town.

Stacks more than I actually need, but you know what its like........

I was going to try and keep track of the points I'd earn with these in the Challenge.

But can't work it out???

Any ideas?

There are 13 buildings in all.

KenR 28mm Kingdom of Jerusalem Foot Knights

The last of the Foot are done now for my Kingdom of Jerusalem force, this little lot are Foot Knights and are once again from Fireforge Games, this time their Templar Infantry plastic set.

Colours are the same as I have used for my other units in this force, aided greatly by decals from Battle Flag. Basing is 6 figs on a 60 x 50 base and it was a bit of a challenge getting the figs on the bases with the large cloaks that some of the figures in the front rank are wearing.

I've used some of the decals on the rear of the cloaks as well.

I've got a couple of mounted units which will have the same theme and I will start on those soon.

I think the poses in this set are a lot better than the Sergeants set and I quite like the variety I have managed to get in arm positions which gives the unit a more realistic feel. I quite like the faces on the figures, they have really grown on me and my style of painting cam make them quite expressive.

I've got some Irregular Miniatures WW1 Cavalry as a test on the paint table at the moment so will be reporting on those next.

Another 121 points taking me to 965, pushing for the thousand !

From MattT, Winning the arms race - VBCW

This next post will be a bit of a suprise for my brother, but sometimes you just see a model and know you have to have it. This was the case with this Seabrook armoured car from Empress Miniatures. I also knew i wanted to crew it with sailors. Scouting round i found some from Pulp Figures. Scale wise they are a bity larger, but luckly they also sold a naval gun that gave me an excuse to up gun the model. I mounted the crew and the gun on a piece of plasticard so it can fire out the port and starboard side. 

Vickers machinegun mounted on a moterbike and sidecar - Yes Please.
Model was a generous christmas present from my brother who might end up regretting it. From 1st Corp WW1 range. Head swap on the passenger so they fit in with my militia.

Stay safe Matt

KenR - Baddies, Blaggers and Slaaagggs

In a leafy lane in Richshire England  group of armed blaggers are after the family art collection of the local gentry, who can save us all !

The start of the Robbers cast for my 7tv game, a lovely bunch of balaclava clad thugs ready to nick owt that ain't nailed down.

The figures are from Crooked Dice and as with the uniformed police there are a couple of duplicates in here which I have tried to paint up differently.

Paint wise it's a very straight forward job after all these lot are not trying to stand out whilst on a job !

That's 8 more figures giving me 40 points up to 844.

Next up will be the last of my Kingdom of Jerusalem Foot.

From SanderS: Rebel Fleet Troopers (49points)

Hoi,

Yes yes, more SWL Rebels, I am dearly sorry people! Sadly there's quite a lot still of Star Wars related stuff coming.

Okay so today I am going to show you guys the quintessential Star Wars "Redshirts" dying like flies in the first scenes of the very first SW movie ever: Fleet Troopers.

For game purposes FFG have decided that most units are made up of 7 figures including 1 officer and at least 1 often 2 special weapons troopers. Because these chaps really look a lot alike, as well as their weapons, I decided to give them colour tags on their backs.

Last time I checked I had a grand total of 196 Challenge points, together with these 49 that makes 245 points. On to some 15mm figures for Fran's Ford!

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!