Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!

 

As the silence of this blog the past few years has highlighted, motivation has been low and far in-between. 

I've painted and gamed, but when it comes to documenting it all, I have simply not bothered. As such, yesterday's crescendo on an otherwise unremarkable day, was the several boxes of 28mm French hurtling towards the floor as they were tipped over by mistake.

Gravity wins again.

So, now I have made a start on fixing and rebasing something in the order of 200–300 figures. Perry figures are nice, but the light infantry all became amputees, and the front rank figures packed a scrum at one end of their boxes. Lancers broke, standards came off and so on.

So, what a good reason to try and document this all.

 

 

Lindy Biege and small beginnings

So since my last epic adventure to Australia, I have been in Australia two more times in the last month or so. The novelty has worn off however my last trip was a holiday and this was very relaxing ,well deserved and I have returned motivated and keen to get myself back into it. I would be motivated to not work at all, sit in the sun and be a gentleman of leisure but somehow I believe my finances would disagree with me.

I started with organizing myself a little bit more and slowly getting some painting done, with  longer time being spent each week.At the moment I am now up to roughly three nights a week for about an hour which, compared to several years ago is not a lot I am finding it helping my productivity.

This all began since I have been watching a youtube channel of lindybeige.

A video entitled "Crap movie archery" (ha ha) was linked on the NZ wargamers forum and since then I have watched most of this person's channel and have found it thoroughly entertaining and knowledgeable. I know very little about ancient history, weapons and clothing so it has been very useful.  Of course I do not take every word he says as a definitive authority but it is quite evident "Lindy" is knowledgeable and humorous at the same time.

In a rare gaming event last night Mark and I managed to play a small Napoleonic game based around an 1809 French attack on some Austrians.I shall make another post on this game but needless to say French dash saved the day and left the Austrians gnashing their teeth on the way back to Vienna (Actually the Austrians stalled at crucial times while French infantry, that should have died several times over hung on for dear life !).

Below - Davout's Division surges into the French Centre, avoiding anything to do with large stone buildings.

For some reason, blogger won't let me post a hyperlink very well so Mark (Chasseur) blog is at http://chasseuracheval.blogspot.co.nz/.

28mm Napoleonic

I worked last night and only had about 4 hours sleep ! In my original post I got Dave and Chris completely mixed up.

Luckily a free afternoon appeared and Chris invited myself over for a game versus Rodger or Rebel Barracks and Mark of Chasseur. After Waterloo Chris wanted us to try General d Brigade Deluxe edition so I though it was worth a shot. Mark and I took the Russians while Chris and Rodger took the French.

All the figures were Chris and they are bloody nice !.

It was a small playtest game and I had a cold so I'm a bit hazy on the details apart from it was good fun and easy to grasp. Playing the game at the right size also helped.

 

Westfalians and the Young Guard.

The table.

The Russian Artillery blasting the columns

Mass cavalry on the flank

My Russian Line unit defending its ground with vigour.

The game took around 4 hours (Our 15mm games take all day so I guess we muck around a bit and have lunch)

New Camera Joy

I'm having great fun with this camera as now I can take photos anywhere and anyway I please.

In between Turks I painted a space marine off a GamesWorkshop Youtube clip. I played a single game of 40k in 1996 - I can't stand the game but I have 20 Space Marines simply as I wanted to paint them. I've yet to master a decent lighting system for my photos yet.

 Next are the 100 or so Hotspur french for the Waterloo re-fight. They have been undercoated black and have had the dry brush of grey on the black bits as per Chasseurs Painting guide. I am following this for a large task to see if I can save any time or better my own processes.

 As such for Waterloo I need 14 Generals. So the old classics are being retouched and below is an old figure. I don't know the make - it almost looks like Hinchcliffe.

2 minifig Guard units ready to be blacklines (Im not repainting these guys - just a subtle blackline)

 And I found a bag of these lads. Very old figures and I have yet to determine the make.

Cats and Wargames

We obtained a cat from the SPCA and at night (When my daughter is asleep) it likes to be near me (Where I am usually painted at the kitchen table). In the last few nights it has found the paint pile an interesting place and keeps jumping on the table (Where it is not allowed).

 However the cat is tone deaf so no amount of talking to it will help. I have to walk around the table and pick it up from the front (Otherwise it gets a fright being deaf). I must have done this about 10 times last night so my output is being affected but I guess it is good exercise.

I have started to re-base my French and so far have changed 6 units around, finished painting another 2 and am just about to finish repainting one more. Then I'll tidy up my cavalry and fix some guns (the guns were shattered in the quakes) and then I'll have a handy small force for a game. All the standards were busted in the earthquakes too so more work is required on those.

Then I shall continue on with my Saxons and Hotspur figures, then maybe the Russians and Prussians too..........and that Austrian unit I have floating around.

To make things worse I have almost finished my 6mm 1815 Prussian Army for solo games. And when I mean games, I mean Plancenoit at Battalion level.

Repainting and Rebasing 25mm Napoloenic French

I am trudging along with repainting\rebasing my 28mm Napoleonics after the Feb quake stuffed then up good and proper. I have finished the First Heavy Cavalry unit and decided to do three units at once (Well four figures at a time).

Below is my first every lead regiment - a 25mm Hotspur French Line unit. In the throes of being repainted and some new recruits (Off that purveyor of old classic - Richard Shield)  to make almost 2 units. These guys are pure 25mm, the used to be sold by Military Miniatures and after the Designer died (In a car crash so I was told) the Hotspur line trickled away. Battleline Minis sell the medieval range but the Napoleonic molds are gone forever, I for one would certainly love to get my hands on them as the small range is quite neat. God knows why, next to 28mm they look like Hobbits but sentimental attachment is overwhelming.





 

I also bought some wire hand made trees from some chaps in Hong Kong, so I am basing them on foamboard and plan to use them as Orchard trees for 15mm (Or massive trees in 6mm). They are excellent trees and far easier to deal with than Woodland Scenics tree kits