VBCW Red Workers Militia [7]

I tried out some Foundry Granite on the boiler suits, trousers and caps of the militia figures this evening, with mixed results. It's not one of my favourite colours but I thought it would be ideal for the toned down, workmanlike look of the figures.

It looks OK but not exactly what I was after. Never mind. I'll add a bit of colour tomorrow with some use of GW Blood Red for the berets, scarves and armbands, which should liven things up a bit. I'll also have a crack at the wooly jumpers and putees that some of the figures are wearing.

Wargames Illustrated 273

If you have a copy of the latest edition of Wargames Illustrated, turn to p97 and you'll see some photos of the game the club put on for Salute 2010, including several shots of my Ju88's.

There goes my fifteen minutes of fame!

The game is scheduled to appear at Attack in Devizes on either the 17th or 18th of July, although I won't be there as I have to go to a wedding on the Saturday and a birthday party on the Sunday.

Bugger.

I will be helping to run the game at Warfare in November though, so I'm looking forward to actually having a crack at it then.

VBCW Red Workers Militia [6]

After a long weekend away, I finally got back to the Red Militia last night and painted the webbing and pouches on two thirds of the figures. I decided to use Foundry Storm Green rather than a leather shade so that the webbing stood out a bit. It will also match the British webbing that some of the figures are wearing.

To explain this away, I reckon that the Reds will have set up a workshop somewhere to produce their own kit out of the materials they have available, so will have opted for canvas and cardboard rather than expensive leather. This makes sense to me anyway! Next up will be the remaining figures with boilersuits which I'll probably paint up in shades of grey.

Tumbling Dice Ironclads

I dug out the TD ironclads from the box last night and had a rummage through to see what I had for painting up over activity week. I have all the ships in the Sail and Steam range for both the British and the French, with sister ships for each vessel in the class, plus a few one off extras like merchantmen, gunboats and tugs.

http://www.tumblingdiceuk.com/sail_steam.html

As a result, I have plenty to choose from when it comes to assembling two squadrons for hypothetical channel actions. I don't plan to paint up all of them but will certainly include the big names on either side including, for example, the Magenta and Solferino for the French together with the Minotaur and her sisterships for the British.

The assembly instructions look pretty straightforward, so that shouldn't take too long. The painting guidelines included in each pack also look pretty simple so I'll give them a go, even though they're not the approach I might have taken, particularly the use of a brown / black ink wash.

I may get the time to do a trial run with one model beforehand to see how things work out. If not, it'll be in at the deep end.

VBCW BUF CV 33 Tankette

After a bit of a delay, the last of the Italian vehicles for the BUF force arrived from the Wargames Command Post on Saturday. It's another tankette but this time the conventional machine gun armed CV33 version. I thought about adding it to the Reds Militia as a captured machine but I think I'll paint it up to match the BUF flamethrower as originally planned.

The VBCW game is back on and scheduled for 6th July, although we'll be using Warhammer Great War with some sort of card based turn modification rather than Through the Mud and Blood, as it will be quicker to get the game up and running. I'm still planning to use TTMAB for the Ambush at Corfe Castle game although it'll have to be after the summer. As the Reds will be done by then I can at least try out the mechanics and the scenario before setting up the game for real.

Cornish Weekend

We went down to sunny Cornwall for the weekend to see my Dad for his birthday, which is why there have been no posts over the last couple of days. It was a very nice break and I managed to pick up some good books including a paper back copy of Hunting Terrorists in the Jungle by John Chynoweth, which I've already started to read. Despite the rather clunky, if apt, title, it reads well and has a lot of useful information about jungle warfare duirng the Malayan Emergency.

On Friday, the Imperial Roman Starter Army arrived as well, so I now have a ton of plastic legionaries and auxilliaries to stick together at some point. For the moment, they've been consigned to the shelves above my desk as I have more than enough to get through including finishing off the Red Workers Militia and preparing some figures or models to paint in Enrichment Week.

I'm still deciding what to do for this but have narrowed down the options to:

1. The 28mm Japanese Back of Beyond army
2. The 12mm ARVN
3. The 1/2400th Victorian Ironclads
4. The 1/600th MiG Alley planes.

The first two are half / three quarters finished while the last two would be started fresh, although the Mig Alley planes are ready to paint.

Tsushima

The Napoleonic naval game the other day has got me thinking about naval gaming again, with the inevitable result that I picked up (yet another) set of rules in .pdf format today. The rules in question are Tsushima by A and A Game Engineering.

I've played a game using them before at the club, in fact a replay of Tsushima in 1/3000th scale, so I know they're a good set of fast play rules for the pre-dreadnought period. Anyway, they've been added to the collection and may yet be used as the basis of a small project at some point in the future.

In the meantime, I have several existing naval gaming projects in the leadpile, with the 1/2400th scale Tumbling Dice ironclads being top of the list, followed closely by the 1/600th scale coastal warfare collection and the ACW ironclads in the same scale. I could tackle one of them once the VBCW Reds are finished in a couple of weeks.

It would be nice to do something other than 28mm figures for a change too, especially if it was relatively simple to do, which is the big advantage of painting naval miniatures.

VBCW Red Workers Militia [5]

I've painted some of the ex-Assaulto figures with the boilersuits this evening in three stage Foundry Sky Blue. I think they look quite good, although the colour is a bit on the light side.

I need to get a good session of blocking in done on the remaining figures, in order to move them towards the end of the painting process, so will crack on with some more painting tomorrow.

Napoleonic Naval Game Report

The Napoleonic naval game at the club this evening was good fun. The rules we used were the excellent A+A Game Engineering fast play set Fleet Actions in the Ages of Sail and the ships were from the Navwar 1:3000th scale range.

The two fleets, one Anglo-Russian and one Franco-Spanish, consisted of three squadrons each. In the ensuing battle, one French and one Spanish squadron successfully engaged a single British squadron in close boarding action, whilst the other French Squadron distracted the remainder of the Anglo-Russian fleet.

The end result was a close run thing but probably went the way of the French and Spanish, although with a little more time the Royal Navy would have evened things out a bit. It was a fast paced and interesting game nonetheless. It certainly got me thinking again about the 1:2400th scale Tumbling Dice ironclads that I have lurking in the leadpile.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera along, so there are no photos at the moment, unless some get posted to the club yahoo group that I can copy over to the blog.

VBCW Red Workers Militia [4]

I got stuck into the Reds yesterday evening and gave some of the figures leather coats and belt kit using Foundry Dark Flesh. I also painted all the rifles and SMG wooden stocks with the same. I'll give them a wash of Foundry Flesh ink later on. It's surprising what a quick layer of paint can do to make figures 'look' like they're on the way to be finished off.

I'm out at the club this evening for a game of Napoleonic naval in 1/2400th scale so may not get any more painting done tonight. After my recent moan about everything at the club being a bit dull, it's really good to see something different being offered for a change. I'll take some photos and post them here.

Needless to say, I'll be flying the flag for the Frogs, although probably not for long judging by my prior lack of nautical victory. It should be fun nonetheless.

Inkerman Saracen

Some excellent pictures of the soon to be released Inkerman Castings Saracen in 1/56th scale, lifted from the Lead Adventure Forum:

http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=19350.0

Really nice paint job and the figures look great too.

The Savage Wars of Peace

I picked up a second hand copy of this yesterday for a couple of quid and it's excellent. Over half of the book deals specifically with Malaya and Borneo, including detailed descriptions of various actions from a first hand perspective. There's a few photos and some useful maps too.

There are also chapters on the Mau Mau revolt in Kenya, on Aden and Yemen, which look very interesting. It's in the pile of books to read and will probably follow on from Jungle Green, which I've nearly finished.

Any project on this is, however, very much theoretical at the moment as I still haven't decided the scale, figures or rules that I would use. There's also the not insignificant problem of terrain to be built including large expanses of inpenetrable jungle.

My ebay copy of the Osprey book on The Malayan Campaign 1948-60 also arrived today in the post, so I've got plenty of stuff to work through as I plan out my ideas.

Happy Fathers Day to me

I got a lie in this morning and a card for Fathers Day, so that was pretty good. I also ordered myself a Fathers Day present of a starter army of Warlord Imperial Romans from ebay, so I can build up a decent army for WAB or whatever, when I eventually get round to it. That's it for June though, especially as the budget isn't going to do we public sector workers any favours.

Not much progress with the VBCW Reds last week, despite my best intentions, as work got in the way much more than expected. As the end of June is rapidly approaching I'm debating whether or not to shelve them and tackle either the 12mm ARVN or 1/600th MiG Alley stuff, which I've held off long enough.

The VBCW thing has been a bit of a sidetrack but enjoyable nonetheless. As I've completed one whole force, perhaps I should leave the Reds until a later date and get on with what I originally planned for this half term? I still haven't decided what I'm going to do in Activity Week either, so there are a few decisions to be made in the next few days.

Figures for Malaya

I'm still debating the best way to go about doing the Malayan Emergency as a skirmish level game. The obvious choice would be to go for the new 28mm Inkerman range of figures which has been designed for just this in mind. This would be perfect for 1:1 skirmish level patrols and ambushes but I'd need to do a lot of one off terrain building and there are very few vehicles that could be used, apart from expensive kits and diecasts.

I also like the idea of a smaller scale with larger scale platoon level actions. I intially thought of 15mm but I don't think this would work unless all the figures were individually based. I would be able to reuse the terrain for AK47 and there are more vehicles available but there's no obvious range of figures to use, although the Peter Pig conversion option would be possible.

The Eureka Australians and Ghurkhas are also very nice and would be ideal with a little sanding down of the slouch hats into bush hats. I'd also have to cut off the bayonets on the rifles, as you can see in the picture above.

The other option is to go for 20mm and use WW2 or Vietnam ANZAC's for the British forces and something else converted into the CT's. However, there are very few Far East figures ranges available, with Eureka, SHQ, FAA and Britannia being the only ones I could track down that looked half way useable.

On the other hand, I could have a go at converting some Valiant plastic figures from the British Infantry boxed set as a cheap alternative. I have a box stashed somewhere too, which means that with a little green stuff and some imagination, I might be able to produce something that looks a bit like a jungle equipped commonwealth patrol. I might even be able to produce CT's with a little swapping and chopping of plastic bits from the US Infantry and British Infantry sets?

Worth a try anyway?

Warlord Imperial Romans

The Warlord Romans arrived this afternoon from North Star and, needless to say, I'm now inspired to tackle them as soon as the VBCW Reds are done and dusted. I think I got the last of the deal from North Star as the prices on the damaged boxed sets have now gone up by a couple of quid.

On first inspection the various sprues are very clean and the sculpting is pretty good. There's plenty of variety in poses and equipment options, which should make it pretty straightforward to produce units with a bit of flair. I can see why the move to plastic has been so popular and why 28mm is the way to go.

I mentioned the fact that I'd got a good deal on some wargame figures to the Ministry of the Interior and she didn't bat an eyelid, so I'm planning to get a few extras in the futile expectation that she won't notice. It's worth a try! I think a few Auxilliaries would be entirely justifiable, together with a ballista or two?

VBCW Red Militia [3]

Not a lot of progress this evening, as you can see. A three stage shade of Foundry Bay Brown but I'm not too happy with the results as they look a little too pink. I'm sure they'll look OK with a wash and shade later on. I think I'll try some grey next or some darker brown colours for contrast.

Malaya British Army PR Film

I found this while searching for something completely different today and thought it was pretty good as inspiration for gaming the Malayan Emergency. It's a bit cheesy but the various scenes are excellent for scenario ideas, terrain tips and painting shades.

AMBUSH reel 1 - British Pathe

AMBUSH reel 2 - British Pathe

It's was probably filmed in Brunei and based on an ambush in Borneo or Sarawak but it still good as inspiration, given the fact that much of the kit in the film was used in Malaya toward the end as well.

VBCW Red Militia [2]

I've added another shade to a selection of the militia figures this evening, in the form of three layers of Foundry Drab applied to trousers, jackets and bedrolls. As you can see, it's a similar to but darker than the Rawhide that I used yesterday. Next up will be some different shades of brown and grey.

Warlord Plastics

I spotted a couple of good deals on Warlord Games 28mm boxed Roman and Celts over at North Star today. Apparently, they have a few crushed boxes going for £10 instead of £17, which looks like a pretty good deal:

http://www.northstarfigures.com/prod.php?prod=2031

I don't like the Celts much but the Romans look good, although I'm not sure what I'm going to use them for other than Warhammer Ancient Battles. I had no intention of doing 28mm WAB Ancients, as my leadpile is mainly populated with Shieldwall stuff but when I saw these I thought it was too good an opportunity to miss.

I've ordered a couple of boxes of the legionaries and one of the veterans, so I hope they haven't run out. I'll inevitably have to get a load more but, for the moment, it's very good value for money.

Unfortunately, I dug deeper and found the Pike and Shotte starter armies for £50. I quite like the idea of doing the English Civil War in 28mm, having had a go before using Redoubt figures, although they ended up on ebay when I needed to raise some funds for other things.

If I did get a Pike and Shotte starter army I could use it for 1644 or Warhammer English Civil War, both of which I have in the rules library. It would be a good way to set out on my own and do something that I have wanted to do for a while.

VBCW Red Militia [1]

I tackled the Red Militia this evening, once the kids were in bed, with a three stage Foundry Rawhide approach and managed to get them off to a good start. I'm going to use a limited range of shades over the next week to keep things simple and to retain a common look for the unit as a whole.

Not a lot of progress but I'm moving in the right direction. The next stage will be to have a crack at the boiler suits that seem to be the latest fashion amongst at least two thirds of the proletariat, so the Foundry Sky Blue will get wheeled out tomorrow, as it's one of my favourite shades and will do the job nicely.

I still have to come up with a unit identity for these chaps. The obvious would be to make them quarrymen from Portland or perhaps railway gangers and platelayers from Eastleigh, either of which would fit in well,

Going Solo?

I'm beginning to think about the direction to take when it comes to my wargaming. Although the local club I belong to has a lively membership and is often very busy on game night, there isn't really much going on to interest me in the at the moment.

The current move at the club seems to be toward large multiplayer games of Shako II, Fire and Fury, Blitzkrieg Commander or Fields of Glory, none of which really float my boat. I'm not really interested in this sort of thing and prefer games to be fun rather than overly convoluted or competitive. I'm also not a fan of the 'big' game philosophy.

I'm sure those who take part have a great time and good for them but, for me, it's not what I'm looking for in a Tuesday evening's entertainment. I also haven't got the painting will power or pockets deep enough to invest in a very expensive 15mm Napoleonic, ACW or Ancients army.

Unfortunately, it's become harder of late to interest anyone in the genre and rules that I enjoy or would like to have a crack at. This is partly my fault as, on a number of occasions, I've had to cancel games that I'd offered to put on due to work, family, life and so on getting in the way. I can't attend the club much more than once a month which also leaves me out of the loop in general.

In the past I've had a lot more success in getting things off the ground, including two full campaigns in the Back of Beyond, an Aeronef Scramble for Africa campaign, Legends of the Old West and Saurian Safari, for example. However, the level of interest in these games has waned and it's hard now to get anyone to sign up. Even then it's not easy to find the time to spare, either to get new projects off the ground in the first place or to keep old ones afloat.

I've tried, for example, to get Bag The Hun up and running but it's been an uphill struggle, despite the fact that aerial gaming has been quite popular as a club thing in the past. I'd like to get other projects of the ground including more 28mm skirmish gaming and 15mm AK47, for example, but I'm not sure it's worth the time and effort if no one is particularly interested.

There are still a couple of stalwarts at the club who are into the same sort of things as me and are prepared to set up an occasional game of something on an irregular basis. On the other hand, it would be good if there was a wider group of gamers who wanted to get involved. I get the impression that the 'big' traditional wargame is here to stay so I'm not holding my breadth.

Perhaps it's time I just did what I'm interested in and stopped thinking about what might or might not be popular?

VBCW Red Workers Militia Progress

I've had a pretty busy weekend but have managed to get the Reds up and running once again, after a week of inactivity for various tedious reasons. I finished cleaning up, basing and undercoating the remaining new figures and have now got them up to speed with the others.

As you can see, this involved painting in the flesh tones on the last section worth of riflemen, the extra command figures and the LMG team. I also included the BUF commander figure in the picture, as he's being painted up alongside the milita. As he's actually a Soviet advisor figure with the red star filed off his cap, this seemed perfectly reasonable.

I've decided to slightly reduce the numbers for the Red Workers to speed things up and now have three eight man sections, two LMG's, an HMG and four figures in the command section. This organisation can obviously be shuffled about a bit and is quite flexible. I've also removed the armoured lorry, which will possibly end up with another unit of some sort.

Over the coming week I'm hoping to make much better progress than in recent days, so that the figures will start to look more like colourful anarcho-syndicalist revolutionaries and less like pigeon fancying northern ninjas.

Battlegroup South

I've taken the plunge and tentatively mentioned the outside possibility of a family outing to the Tank Museum that, conincidentally by pure chance, coincides with Battlegroup South.:

http://www.battlegroupsouth.org/news.php

Who said 'Danger' wasn't my middle name.

The initial response seemed not too hostile, so I may be on to a winner. I don't think she was entirely focussed on the conversation at the time, so there's a chance I can pull the ' but you've already said you'd love to go' ace card at a later critical point in the negotiations.

Either that or I'll take of my shoe and bang it on the table.

I've never been to the show before, despite the fact that it's only an hour and a bit away in driving terms, so I think this is the time to make a stand. Apparently, it may be the last show at the Tank Museum, so it would be a shame to miss it this year.

Wish me luck.

Malayan Emergency

I've been reading The War of the Running Dogs over the last few days and although it's interesting as a political history of the Malayan Emergency, it isn't as informative when it comes to the military side of the campaign.

As a result, I was really pleased to find a hardback copy of Jungle Green by Major Arthur Campbell in the local Oxfam bookshop this afternoon. It looks like a very interesting read and clearly focuses on the jungle bashing side of the conflict, from the perspective of the average national serviceman rather than from the top down.

If I do have a crack at this it's probably going to be in 28mm with the new Inkerman Castings range of figures, although 20mm or 15mm would also be good options. In 20mm there's no shortage of figures or terrain, as I suspect Liberation Miniatures, Platoon 20 or the like would provide suitable figures for both sides, not to mention good old Airfix and HaT.

In 15mm, it's a bit less straightforward, especially as I have a leaning towards Peter Pig rather than other manufacturers. The British could be assembled from the WW2 Burma range together with some stuff from AK47. The CT's are less straightforward and would need to be converted from a mixture of AK47, USMC and whatever else I could cut and shut into a reasonable likeness of the average communist cadre.

Perhaps 28mm is the best option after all?

Plastic Dinosaur Repaints

Here's a blog that looks like it might be very inspirational for those of a dinosaur hunting persuasion and colonial gamers in particular:

http://adventuresinlead.blogspot.com/2010/06/and-now-for-something-completely.html

Good stuff.

Forward Planning

It's about a month or so until my I get the chance to have an entire week of (relatively) uninterupted painting. In July I run a Warhammer 40K Workshop at the school where I teach, as part of Enrichment Week (for those of you who are not up to speed with current PC eduspeak, this is what used to be caled an Activity Week).

While the kids merrily mutilate GW plastic space marines, I get the time to paint up a significant chunk of the lead pile, without any complaints from the Ministry of the Interior i.e. the other half. The kids are great and really get into the whole thing, producing some pretty good painted armies over the week. I spend quite a bit of time keeping them on track but, on the whole, manage to get some decent painting time in too.

Last year I almost completed an entire Dervish army in 15mm for Patrols in the Sudan, while the year before, I nearly finished a posse of 28mm Mexican banditos for Legends of the Old West. This year, I have a number of potential projects in mind, with a few front runners and some unfinished projects waiting to be completed.

The current favorite is a 15mm dictatorship army for AK47. In close second is the MiG Alley project in 1/600th. I also have the 28mm Japanese for the Back of Beyond to complete or the ARVN in 12mm for Cold War Commander. I could even try to complete a project in a week from scratch, as I have plenty to choose from including WW2 coastal warfare in 1/600th, 28mm near future French Foreign Legion, 28mm Gladiators and 1/285th scale RAF for North Africa, to name but a few.

If you'd like to see me attempt any of the above, or have some alternative suggestions, then feel free to let me know, as I'm sure the leadpile will have something buried in it that fits the bill.

Ambush at Corfe Castle Postponed

Unfortunately, Jon can't make the planned game next week due to transport problems, so we've had to postpone it until later in the month.

However, this will give me more time to get the terrain bits and bobs done, including some road sections and possibly some river sections, together with a few walls and hedges. The modular road and river sections will be made out of hardboard textured with a PVA / filler / sand mix then painted and flocked.

They'll be pretty generic so will be useful for all sorts of other things including skirmishes in various recent and not so recent wars. I have a lot of Redoubt figures stashed away for the ACW as well as Late War British and Americans for WW2, so that's two projects that would benefit to start with, along with my existing Back of Beyond stuff.

The Red Militia have come to a grinding halt this week due to work commitments but I'm hoping to start on them this evening, if only the first installment. I'm going to split the force in two and begin with the figures that I've already based and undercoated with a few extras, before moving on to the second installment if I get the time. That way, at least half will get done by the end of the month.

VBCW Cards

I spent an hour or so this evening working out and producing the cards required for the VBCW ambush game next Tuesday. It took a while to adapt the scenario in the Triumphant Standards supplement to the Dorset set up but I think I've covered most of what's required.

The generic cards are done including the BUF and Anglian Militia blinds, the Time for a Snifter card and the Command Initiative cards for both sides. I've also devised cards for the BUF and Anglian Militia Big Men, a couple of support units and scenario specific things like the Convoy, Poor Fire Discipline and Good Book cards.

I'm still a little hazy when it comes to how the whole card initiative thing works but I'm sure it'll work out fine in the end. If it's anything like Bag The Hun, it should be fairly straightforward. If not, we'll work it out as we go along.

Charlie Don't Surf Arrives

I finally got round to ordering a pdf copy of Charlie Don't Surf and the Surf's Up scenario book today. I haven't had time to have a decent read through but they look pretty good and have obvious similarities to other Toofatlardies rules with the use of turn cards, blinds and big men, for example.

I'm still thinking about the relative pros and cons of the various Vietnam rules that I have, with the top three options being Men of Company B, Delta to DMZ and Charlie Don't Surf. I've got a stockpile of unpainted Peter Pig figures that are destined for one or more of these, if I can make up my mind which way to go.

They all have their good points but also a few downsides. The key issue for me is basing, as I can't see how I'd make CDS work with multiple based figures, as required for MOCB and DMZ.

I'll need to give it some thought but will try to come up with a solution.

VBCW Red Workers Militia continued...

The Musketeer figures finally arrived today and I've picked out the ones I think will match with the existing Red Workers figures from Empress, North Star, Bolt Action and Westwind. Unfortunately, the Workers Militia bloke with the Bergman SMG had a broken barrel, which is a shame as I really like the figure and wanted to use it as an NCO. Bugger.

Anyway, I've used the other figures to bulk out the unit and create four sections / squads of ten figures, eight with rifles, one with an SMG and one officer or commissar. This is quite a lot of lead to tackle, so one or two of the sections might fall by the wayside as I get try to get them painted up by the end of the month, although I'll do my best to finish the lot.

I've also got a support section of one HMG and two LMG bases, together with the FT17 tank and the field gun plus armoured lorry tow. Again, these might not all see the light at the end of the tunnel, except the FT17 which is looking at me in a funny way and just has to be done.

I've also got a shipment of four diecast trucks from ebay which look ideal for VBCW. They're Lledo Days Gone By Fordson 7v lorries, complete with removable tilts. I'm not sure what I'm going to use them for but they'd be good as regular or territorial army trucks with a quick paint conversion and some insignia decals for the mudguards.

Finally, the police figures have had their bases textured, painted and flocked. Now all I need is a suitable police vehicle for them to drive around in, otherwise they'll have to walk.

VBCW Police Painted

I did a rush job on the Artizan bobbies this evening and finished them off, apart from the bases, in a couple of hours. They're not as neatly done as the other figures I've painted recently but they'll do the job.

They're still a bit shiny despite a coat of satin varnish which usually tines things down nicely so I'll have to try something else to get them looking suitably matt. I may yet add some extra details including some stripes and armbands and will also be sorting out the bases tomorrow, if I get the time.

I think I need to paint something a little less monochrome next, otherwise I'm going to lose it.

VBCW Auxiliary Police

I found the time to clean up, base and undercoat the six Artizan bobbies that I'm going to use as a small attached auxilliary police unit for the blackshirts.

There were originally going to be eight figures in the unit but the two with handguns turned up without barrels, having been loosely packed together with the other figures.

The five rifle armed constables and the revolver equipped sergeant will be reluctantly accompanying the BUF flying column on it's advance into the Isle of Purbeck but may well switch sides if things go the way of the local rebels.

I finished off the intial stage of painting with a 50:50 wash of GW Blue Ink and Black Ink, followed by a main shade of Vallejo Dark Prussian Blue. I thought about adding some sort of drybrush highlighting but, in the end, decided to keep things simple.

The next stage will be to paint in the flesh tones and the rifle stocks, before picking out minor details such as boots, belts and buttons.

Back Again

We got back from France today after a very enjoyable trip.

We spent three days in Paris and then stopped overnight on the way back in Cassel near St Omer. The hotel we stayed in was used by Foch, Haig and King George V in 1916 and 1917, believe it or not. We also visited La Coupole on the way back which was very interesting and very well done.

http://www.lacoupole-france.com/en/default.asp

I didn't get to do any wargames related shopping this time, although I did get a copy of Vae Victis and Aero Journal, together with a copy of Champs de Bataille covering the Norwegian Campaign, so the library is well stocked for the moment.

When I got back I also found two packages from North Star, one with the Artizan bobbies and the other with the North Star SCW International Brigade figures.

I've yet to decide what I'm going to do with the latter as the Red Workers Militia is getting steadily bigger and thus less manageable as the extra reinforcements gradually filter through the postal system. An email from Musketeer has also arrived to say the long overdue VBCW Workers Militia and IRA figures are on the way, so there may well be some selections made of the figures in the pile to pick the best of the bunch.

So, with only a couple of days of holiday left, I'm going to put the Reds to one side until the Musketeer figures arrive. I'll then be able to sit back and get the whole lot organised into it's component units, once and for all.

In the meantime, I'm going to clean up, base, undercoat and paint the Artizan bobbies as an auxiliary police unit for the BUF. I'm also going to do a paint conversion on one of the Empress Soviet advisor figures to turn him into an extra officer for the blackshirts.

I can then start painting the Reds up as the project for June, which means the MiG Alley stuff will be pushed further up the schedule yet again to make room.