Warhammer Historical Gladiators [8]

A few more gladiators have been added to the pile, thanks to a bargain on ebay. I've won a Foundry pack for half the retail price so now have a good selection of extra types to add to the twelve that I've based up and undercoated. I'm particularly pleased that I'll now have a second Retiarius to fill out the ranks, together with a good selection of useful shields.

Bomber Crew

I ploughed my way through the Colin Thubron book over the last week or so and, while it was a very interesting read in a vaguely historical way, it was a little disappointing from a military history point of view. I had hoped for a little less travelogue and a little more historical depth but found that the latter was overwhelmed by the travel writer's over emphasis on people rather than places. Not that it wasn't worth reading, by the way.

As a result, I've decided to go for something in a military history vein for the next book, having started Bomber Crew by John Sweetman. It's very well written thus far and I think may be well worth it. If Richard Holmes found it 'compelling' it can't be half bad. Who knows, it may even re-invigorate my stalled Bag The Hun 2 project with some much needed enthusiasm.

Vauban Fort

Sorry for the temporary hiatus in posts but the router livebox wotsit jobby decided to go ppht! a couple of days ago, so no internet for the last forty eight hours or so. The lovely wife did her usual telephonic argy bargy which resulted in a new livebox gizmo and a restored connection to the interweb. She was about to crowbar up some paving slabs to chuck at the CRS but I managed to stop her in time.

Huzzah!

Anyway, in the interim, we've been moving around a bit, so no painting as yet on the 28mm gladiators. I'm hoping that the next couple of days will see some sort of progress but can't make any promises. So, to make up for my singular lack of wargaming headway, here are some photos of a rather good Vauban fort that we visited a couple of days ago in Camaret.

Enjoy.

A bit more of the Atlantic Wall

We went for a long range trip today, all the way to the Crozon Peninsula which is to the South of the naval port of Brest. As part of the return journey, we stopped off at the headland of Cap de la Chevre, where I found this rather interesting bit of the Atlantic Wall.

According to the inscription on the top of the observation bunker, it was where one of the commanders of Brest surrendered to the Americans in September 1944, presumably as he had nowhere left to go. It's a little bit of military history that I'm going to look into, assuming I can find some relevant background information on the net.

We also spent some time at the beach, where we found a pile of beach obstacle tetrahedrons all piled up under the cliff. I guess there were a load more underneath all the shingle and loose rocks that had tumbled off the cliff in the last sixty years or so, but the ones that I could see looked pretty impressive on their own.

Pirate Ship Bits

There's a new multipart magazine construction kit out in France from which you can build a sial training ship in 1/65th scale. The first issue contains a set of hull ribs and formers, some PVA glue and sand paper and a magazine. These are all nice but far more useful is the anchor, ship's wheel and bundle of strip wood planking that comes with it, all for the price of one euro.

http://www.altaya.fr/coleccionable/construisez-le-belem.html

I picked up three magazines this morning and will hoard the various bits for use in pirate ship construction at some point in the future. The stripwood itself is worth the price as it's useful for loads of things from a scratchbuilding point of view. I have three bundles each of thirty or so 6'' long strips, so enough to plank a decent sized ship if I wanted to.

Bargain!

BD U47

I was doing my usual browsing in a local bookshop this morning and found this new graphic novel or BD, as the French like to call them. You can read more about it here:

http://www.zephyreditions.net/bd.php?bd=144&position=6

I had a flick through and thought it looked rather good, not onlly in terms of the artwork and storyline but also down the fact that at least half the book was dedicated to a thorough and very well illustrated overview of U Boat operations and development.

I've been promising myself some more BD titles for a while, so I may well add it to the shopping list. I have no idea why the plethora of French language BD haven't been translated into English and published in the UK, as I'm sure they'd be incredibly popular with the aviation and military history fraternity.

Warhammer Historical Gladiator [7]

The Gladiators

Cataphractus, Secutor, Secutor

Thracian, Thracian, Myrmillo

Cruppellarius, Provacator, Andabate

Laquerarius, Hoplomachus, Retiarius

Here are the cleaned up and based figures ready for undercoating. As you can see I've added another Myrmillo figure and changed the original Myrmillo into an Andabate or blindfolded fighter. As the figure has a full face mask on his helmet this seemed like a good idea and allowed me to include the Foundry Myrmillo, which was both more accurate and a really nice sculpt.

Warhammer Historical Gladiator [6]

I didn't start on the gladiator figures until late this evening as we had people round for the day. I have, however, cleaned up and based all of the figures plus an extra Thracian from Foundry to produce eleven gladiators in total.

This is an odd number so I'm going to add just one more to make it up to a round twelve, although I'm not sure what it'll be. I should get the whole lot undercoated tomorrow morning, weather permitting, so that I can start painting by the end of the week at the latest.

Warhammer Historical Gladiator [5]

I spent a couple of hours today sorting through and identifying the various 28mm gladiators that I've brought along to paint up for the holidays. I've now chosen ten to use as the core of the project, with nearly every one of the gladiator types represented and a couple of unusual figures thrown in for good measure.

I've decided to go for an imperial era date as it covers most of the different types of gladiator and gives a bit more variety. I've used selected Crusader figures for most of them but have also included a few Foundry models to round things out, although the more anachronistic or lanky ones have been left in the box. I added a second Secutor though, as I really like the figure!

There are a few gaps that I need to fill, particularly the lightly armed or numerous types such as venatores, velites and sagitarius, but these will be sorted out by adding figures from the spares box or by doing some converions from suitable figures that I have duplicates of. I may also have a crack at doing some plastic conversions using the Warlord Celts that I bought cheap the other day from Northstar.

I'm hoping to start cleaning the ten figures up this evening and have them ready for painting by this time tomorrow. I've also going to replace the 'Samnite' figure with a different one, as it isn't really a samnite and I don't have a shield to use to make it into a mrymillo, which is what it probably should be. I told you this was complicated!

Back of Beyond Expediton [36]

I had a go at sorting through my collection of 28mm gladiators this evening but got thorougly tied up in knots. I have several Crusader Miniatures figures which are fairly easy to identify both from their armour and the descriptions on the Crusader website. However, they aren't all great sculpts and tend to suffer from over sized heads on dumpy bodies, although there are several that are very good.

I also have a small collection of 28mm Foundry figures which are the complete opposite, having excellent proportions and top notch sculpting but rather dubious armour and weaponry combinations. I'd prefer to use the Foundry figures with a few of the compatible Crusader ones thrown in for good measure but I need to do some sorting out before I make the final selection.

In the meantime, I've cleaned and based up the Chinese labourers for the Back of Beyond expedition. The majority are from the Copplestone bandits pack but I've also drafted in two Foundry pirates and a spare Chinese executioner from the Copplestone pack. I'd like to add the six extras to make the unit up to it's maximum size of eighteen, but I'll need to find some compatible figures from somewhere to do so.