Painting Update this week

Sadly we had to postpone a planned ACW on Friday but another one hopefully planned for tomorrow. Anyway as we pack for our holiday I have been using spare time to crack on with some painting.

American M8 for my US Sicily forces, Warlord model, plastic picked up I think at Partizan last year ?

A new unit of Rebel Militia, in shirt sleeves to add some variety, these are Perry I think and really lovely sculpts, plenty of well defined details. The command group had two flag carriers so I have split them up to give me some options.

Some late Roman heavy cavalry, I’m not sure of their specific name possibly Clibinarii ?I had a few of the yellow shield transfers so thought I would use them up and they are just about ok at a distance. Some of these were repainted to give a full unit. I need to add some more infantry for the late Romans next.

With the ACW on my mind I thought I would spend a couple of days prepping ALL the remaining ACW cavalry I have in the ‘plastic mountain’……quite a lot !

Finally for a quirky last note here is the ‘giants grave’ from our local church yard

It is something of a fake but is quite famous locally

That’s it for now, thanks for checking in, I’m off to set up for tomorrow’s ACW battle 

Matt ❤️

Another busy week ?

This time of year is normally quite busy as we have a string of family birthdays and we have been out and about, including another trip to London more of that later. When I have been at home I managed some hobby time painting and prepping figures…..

These Late Roman cavalry have been completed

Older Gripping beast figures but they are pretty solid sculpts, hand painted shields to match the infantry painted so far. Following these I have prepped some heavier cavalry which need to be undercoated.

Also completed the first four of the plastic trucks which were gifted to me and shown and blogged a couple of weeks ago. These are in a fairly neutral colour and meant for use by Germans and their allies in Sicily. Their allies I hear you say ?

Sometime in the last week or so I had a birthday and treated myself to a new army. To be honest I had been planning this for a while as an expansion to the Sicily gaming, welcome to the Italians. There are a couple more bits on the way to add some variety but I picked up the starter army at a very competitive price off eBay. For bolt action I will have at least the 12 standard units. The plastic infantry have been glued and are awaiting some base work before painting.

We’ve had two recent trips to London celebrating and socialising. Ignoring that I also had a spare afternoon and visited the National army museum it has been ages since I last went , I was really impressed and would encourage people to visit some many interesting a fun things to see, here is just a small selection

Picton’s hat and the musket ball that did for him at Waterloo

Eagle and standard captured at Waterloo

The owner of this jacket charged at Waterloo to protect the British heavy cavalry after their famous charge

Marengo, well what’s left of him, and Wellingtons clothes

Some Crimean stuff, the paper to the right is the actual order for the charge, the other jackets were actually in the charge itself

They also have some colourful uniforms from further afield and Britains colonial exploits

A french Generals uniform captured at Blenheim 

Oh and a small standard captured at Salamanca, I took loads of other photos of interesting uniforms and bits as well. We worth a visit if you are in the area.

Finally the hint of a late summer spell this week so I headed back out to the hills, yesterday really was spectacular up in Langdale

On the Langdale Pikes looking NW

Looking the other way, Windermere in the distance

All being well gaming tomorrow and then catching up on some jobs in the garden, and I’m keen to get stuck into some painting

Thanks as always for checking by 

Matt

The 16th Dragoons : AWI

The temporary pause from blogging is over as we have now settled back in from our Hadrian Wall walk. First up though we are planning our next AWI game the Battle of White Plains, I haven’t quite completed the scenario but from my reading the British 16th Light Dragoons played a small part in the battle. Having previously done some American cavalry it was a chance to balance things up.

16th Light Dragoons

These of course are Perry Miniatures (minus the vent runs 🙂) I do have the dismounted figures but I haven’t got round to them yet

As I have previously mentioned we spent last week walking Hadrian’s wall, the weather was fantastic, plenty of beautiful countryside, a good amount of excellent beer, exercise and an abundance of military / Roman history that kind of sums up the week. For those of a technical preference the wall is 84 miles long although the walk is according to my sons Strava record closer to 95 miles including the wiggles I guess. We took 6 days which was tough but manageable as I do quite a bit of mountain walking anyway. We carried our stuff but stayed in hotels etc along the wall. The heat was our biggest challenge as day 4 saw temperatures up to 29 degrees and the nature of the wall is water is only available at certain locations. But we survived and although I had walked  chunk of the central section before it gave a different experience to travel the full length in one go as it were.

I don’t plan to share all the photos (there are lots) in one go and will instead drop them in over the next few posts. Here are just a few to share I will happily discuss any aspects of the walk for those interested. Whilst not complete it is the most magnificent tribute to the Roman Empire and still quite inspiring.

Hopefully back to gaming this weekend.👍

Matt

Czechoslovak Legion and Roman Scorpio

Progress this weekend on a few bits having laboured through late Romans shields I wanted something super easy……the Czech Legion are just that. They have sat under coated for a while  and are now ready for battle.

Czechoslovak Legion, fighting mainly for the whites in their formal position, but might be dispersed as a group across the Reds when needed 😀 copplestone castings, one would say easy to paint but not the most inspiring figures in the range.

Nest up rebased and touched up a Roman Scorpio (bolt thrower) not convinced by the shield but it will do for now.

Finally the Roman light cavalry are out of their dettol bath. In fact they have had two baths as the first didn’t quite get all the primer off, the second bath seems to have done the trick.

Another walk out over the holiday weekend, this time visiting the largest stone circle in Cumbria, not so far from where we live.

On the walk there is a small church near the river Eden, they have found a number of carved stones in the river one of them being this carved Anglo-Scandinavian hogs back grave stone. Estimated to be from 10th or 11th century they also have some other Saxon carved stones but this was my favourite.

Back to painting this evening 👍

The next Late Romans

I have been working away at rebasing the next batch of Late Romans. They only needed limited repainting to blend them with my other figures and of course I repainted the shields (please don’t look to closely).

More late Romans, these are slightly less armoured than the previous unit, the challenge here was I wasn’t able to remove all the figure safely from their 1p bases so I had to stick them on in situ, luckily the Milliput I use has disguised it pretty well

I have also worked up and rebased the first group of archers. The idea I am working on here is flexibility so they can fight as an independent unit or as shown below……

They can merge into the infantry for combined units which I understand was how they formed up right at the end of the Roman Empire. So that is two good units and I have a few more bits before I tackle some cavalry units. I also have the light cavalry which are coming out of their dettol bath this weekend.

Finally the weather has been nice for a couple of days so I took the opportunity together out walking. One of our nearest hills is Blencathra. There are a number of routes to the summit but by far the best is Sharp Edge it is only short , but is quite an exposed and interesting scramble. A joy on a nice warm sunny day 😀

Some more units painted this weekend and loads of hobby stuff 👍

The Late Romans Arrive !

The kick start to the Late Roman expansion of my dark age collection was the kind offer to purchase a significant number of figures from Steve, he had picked them up at a show second hand. Whilst he had painted up a rudimentary lion rampant force they had never made it to the table. And as he is also painting imperial Romans this wasn’t a project which he is likely to finish. We negotiated a very reasonable price 😀 and going though the stuff was a bit like Christmas and Birthday rolled into one.

The infantry painted up, basing is the main issue although I also intend to repaint/refresh them enough to feel some ownership. I don’t want my Romans to look too clean 😀

The cavalry, quite a bit but I need to break this down a bit into units that work for me but it can be supplemented from below

Importantly quite a lot of unpainted stuff or poorly painted stuff which needs stripping and repainting. I haven’t counted in detail but think in total I will have 6 or so infantry regiments with 7 or so smaller cavalry units. I have spent some time thinking about how to base them, giving me the flexibility for different rule sets although I don’t want to go down individual figures. I have made a start at least….

So here are the first infantry unit, ‘fresh ingredients up the painting a little’ for example toning down the armour, repainted shields and rebasing. The idea is to have mixed units although that is hard to see form the photo with armoured men at the front, supported by lighter infantry. Archers will be based separately to fit on the rear on matching bases or separately depending on the period/style required. On the unpainted units I will probably use some transfers but these would have required quite a bit of cleaning before I could apply them so the first couple of units will be hand painted shields.

Here are some of the old painted figures who are up for stripping, a good number of Light Cavalry

They have dived straight into their dettol bath and we will see how this goes

And a landscape photo to share the colour of the heather is particularly spectacular at the moment 

Thanks for looking 😀