A Return to the Table

 Well, again several months have flown by without me giving any sort of update as to how things have gone.  But, in my defence I have been a bit busy painting and reorganising things.  First things first though, my purchases.  I decided to take the plunge and pick up the Jutland fleets from Navwar and they will make a nice future project, probably 2022 the rate I am going.  On the English Civil War project, I now have all the figures needed to create the musketeer and pike only regiments and they are planned to be next on the painting desk after the the current batch of French Napoleonic troops are finished.  On the subject of the Napoleonic project, I also picked up some packs of Spanish figures to add to the British forces at some point.  Apart from figures, I have been busy buying up several sets of Renaissance rules including a set I loved back in the 1980's, the 5th edition of Tercio which I picked up when I had 15mm French Catholic and Huguenot a...

This weekend should bring to an end the painting of the Peninsula War British for now.  I have managed to paint forty three foot regiments (thirty nine out of the fifty one foot regiments for the Peninsula, the missing twelve are all from the Left Centre Column).  Twenty cavalry regiments (including all seventeen British cavalry regiments for the Peninsula)  Eight out of the twelve RA/KGL/RHA batteries for the Peninsula are done.  Finally, four bases of Commanders have been done. So, that just leaves the Portuguese, Spanish and a few more artillery batteries to do, all of which I will tackle in a couple of months time.   So, what am I going to do to fill my painting time with, I guess the obvious answer is to begin doing the French that I need.  I will begin with the Army of the South under Gazan, comprising thirteen line, five light regiments of infantry, ten dragoon, three chasseur a cheval, a single hussar regiment and finally eight batteries of eit...

Here we are at the start of June and things have progressed quite well with the British Peninsula army, mainly because my wife was hospitalized (non-COVID related) at the start of the month for nearly a week, fortunately she is well enough now.  Though I do think it was all a ploy to get out of giving me a return game and a chance to even the score. The infantry were put on hold a couple of weeks ago as I was awaiting some new flags from Maverick Models, typically for me, I had the figures for several line infantry battalions but no flags and flags for some light infantry but no figures, so, I decided to make a start on doing the cavalry and that is where I hit the first snag.  I had originally planned to have either twelve or sixteen figures per base, as I could get eighteen in two ranks on one of my ECW bases.  Of course I had forgotten about the regimental name strip that I am putting on the back of all the bases and that meant that I couldn't get the two ranks on the ...

Well, we are now at the end of April and things have been progressing quite quickly on the painting front.  There are now a total of twenty six British infantry stands completed and they look really quite good, I have been using a different flock on the bases compared to the ECW bases I did as it adds a colour variation into the bases.  Also, I have started to uses some static grass tufts from  Boon Town Metals which look great.  My painting still isn't too brilliant, but I am still happy with how the figures are turning out, I am also sticking by the flags from  Maverick Models who managed to resize the flags from the order I placed up to 9mm to make them the same size as the flags from Baccus, so I am in the process of replacing the generic Baccus flags with the proper regimental flags from Maverick. Here are two of the most recent battalions to be finished; 7th Royal Fusiliers 23rd Royal Welch Fusiliers So, in addition to painting figures ...

Well, this lockdown has given me the impetus to crack on with my painting.  At the end of my previous post I was about to start painting the final couple of KGL battalions, well I managed to get them all finished and then started on another couple of Line infantry units as well as a Highlander and Rifle unit, the 92nd and the 60th.  I also wanted to try using some flags that I got from Maverick Models . The results were a little mixed, the flags were really small when compared to the Baccus figures I am using, so I ended up replacing them with Baccus flags.  I like the range of flags from Maverick but I will have to find out if I can get them scaled up a little before I can use them again.  The Highlanders turned out OK, though I think I should have mixed some black into the blue for the kilts. The 60th (Royal American) base looks a little crowded for a unit in open order, when I come to doing the 95th Regiment battalions I will have to drop the number ...

Well it has been a while again since I last posted anything here and quite a few things have been happening when it comes to my gaming life. Firstly, I have decided to put the Montrose army on hold for a bit, I need a break from the 17th Century after getting what I can of the Scots Covenanter army finished.  I still have to get a couple of regiments of dragoons for the army and maybe some more cavalry.  But, for now I will set them aside and concentrate on the Napoleonic armies I have got piling up. Here is the completed Parliamentarian army all laid out. This is the Royalist army, it is of similar size to the Parliament army, though there are a couple of extra cavalry regiments. Finally, the Scots Covenanters. Regarding the table, I have changed my mind and have purchased an eight by four piece of MDF, which was cut up into a pair of three by four boards and a two by four mini board.  The reason for abandoning the folding table plan was that there ...

As 2019 draws to an end, I think a small review is in order along with a chance to make some predictions for the new decade. So, looking back first of all at my end of year thoughts from last year and I feel quite good about what I have accomplished this year.  For three quarters of the year I was able to paint at a steady rate and I have managed to get both the Parliamentarian and Royalist armies completed and if I had not had the turmoil of the past three months I am sure the Covenanters would have been finished as well.  As it stands, I am still working on the Horse regiments, with nearly four completed now, just another nine to go, after that I still have a couple of dragoon regiments and the artillery train to sort out. I think I have all the terrain I need now for the English Civil War and Napoleonic games I am planning, so all I have to do now is to get the buildings painted.  The one thing that I failed in getting sorted was the table, so still no games played...