The heat, the dust.

I am giving myself a bit of a holiday from cranking out Napoleonic troops and taking a trip to the North Western Frontier. The year is about 1895.

Just finished this chap this morning; he was still on his painting stand as the varnish dried when I took the photo. A splendidly useless figure in war gaming terms, but what the heck.

Another pair of Willies, the first of the English infantry.

The rules will probably be TSaTF*, maybe 5-6 units of infantry, a battery and three units of cavalry. Then there are the Pathans...

*Or perhaps I'll cook up a Funny Little Derivative thereof.

Painting Challenge... result!

Today ticks over the deadline for a small painting challenge I have been participating in and, despite it being a near-run thing, I managed to scrape in.

 Here we go, another French unit for d'Erlon's third Division during the 100 Days.

And it's part in the greater scheme of things.

General de Brigade

A couple of Zvezda johnnies. M. le General peers with his spyglass whilst his eager young ADC prepares to fly off with instructions for some lucky Chef de Bataillon.

Le 45eme de Ligne

 The 45th of the line which famously lost it's eagle at Waterloo to Sgt Ewart of the Scot's Greys.

 Zvezda Command - the figures work together very well with the Waterloo 1815 rankers in my opinion.

les Bleus, redux

 In Line... Skirmishers out.

 In Battalion Column, Skirmishers out front

 In Square, Skirmishers in.

In March Column.

Les Bleus

Just while I am waiting on some Vietnam kit to arrive, I'm off and painting some French Infantry for the 100 Days.

Waterloo 1815 figures with something of the feel of the old Esci/Italeri figures. The base is 50mm/2" wide. I am intending eight figures per base and four bases per unit.

Saddle up, time to go on patrol

 A pair of M113 ACAVs rolling out on patrol from Firebase Freddy.

Looks quiet out there.

Too quiet.

Keep your eyes on the road, trooper.

The Vietnam War

Over the past week or so I have found myself drifting off to thoughts about the Vietnam War, so of course it was time for a dive into the Stash!

JB Models M113 ACAV

 As with most things, my interest was sparked by an article in a wargames magazine, in this case the Winter 1989 issue of Practical Wargamer with a couple of these kits assembled and painted by Graeme Green of Special Forces  - one of the premier painting houses of the time.

Commanders for same

The images were inspirational and I've always remembered them, so this little collection will be my tribute to those wonderful figures.

Grenadiers of Nassau

First the front side

Then the back side

Drying varnish gleaming in the early morning sunshine...

What's the latest?

The first batch of French Dragoons of course! Whatever else?

Napoleon, in the Rhineland with some Dragoons?

Nassauers

And I just finished off a unit of NaT Nassauers.

Nice figures and because of the way they break down in the box, you could build a few options with just a couple of boxes. Full marks to HaT on these little gems.

Oh yes, the rest of the Curassiers

Oh, a Dutch Battery appears to be about to either deliver some mighty stick or be completely overrun.

What I did on my Holidays

 An Emperor and a personal attendant

 A Cuirassier and his flag

 Redux... Yes, there is a complete unit of Cuirassiers. He's no Nigel no-mates.

And Hurrah for the RHA! Spanking chaps and I am sure Captain Mercer would be proud.

Currently working on some Nassau infantry and am putting the finishing touches on another pair of RHA 6pr guns.

Next?

French Dragoons, I think.

Another new adventure...

Allons-y!

That article

My first Tommy. Still a work in progress as he needs a few highlights here and there, some violently dark green on his base and a good coat of gloss varnish. Still, I am jolly pleased with him. One of Stadden's fnest. 

And the production line creaks into life

With their varnish still slightly sticky and their bases unpainted. Stadden's very handsome 30mm Great War German infantry

More test figures

I think I have nailed down the look for my German troops now.GW Death Guard Green all the way!

The Luftkreitskrafte

The Herr Rittmeister waits impatiently for his kite to be made ready

 Every Funny Little... project needs a dinky old aircraft right? And a ground team.

I swear it was here a moment ago..!

As this is as much a paint test for painting Field Gray, 1914-style, any feedback would be gratefully taken on board.

And now for something completely different

Just looking for trouble

From the Warhammer Conquest range - not the magazines themselves, just the sample from the book.

Yes, I have subscribed. 

Finished the charging Mamluk

Ahh, finished at last. The varnish is still sticky.

The Charging Mamluk...

...with apologies to Géricault  and the French Romantics.

The fairly familiar Willie figure with a few gentle bends and twists. I just need to bash out some wire for a scimitar. And prop up the horse with some brass wire so it doesn't sag to the ground under it's own weight.

A Bevy of Bavarian Beauties

General

 All figures are Willies and therefore superb!

Officer of the Arco Cuirassiers

Colonel of the Kurprinz Regiment

Pikemen and an NCO, likewise of the Kurprinz Regiment

Poking About...

Here we all are again. It has been a while since I last posted here - not too much to say, I suppose!

So, what's up with you?

I've been plugging away at my 20mm French Napoleonic troops. Four units of foot, a command group and a couple of guns now, which I feel is reasonable progress I'm working away at another gun and crew as well as a caisson - all from the Zvezda set I have been ruining my eyesight over.

I have also been looking wistfully at one of my perennial favorites - the Great War in Africa. In my own case, this is not just the swashbuckling antics of Lettow-Vorbecks men in Africa, but it also takes in pseudo colonial,  and dashing antics on the part of German and Empire forces in the Pacific in the form of the various actions undertaken to snap up Germany's Pacific posessions in China and New Guinea as well as the hunt for the gallant raider "Emden".

Two lovely websites I have happened upon have many excellent images of Germany's colonial troops.

The first is extremely comprehensive:

http://www.germancolonialuniforms.co.uk/

The second has a series of charming water colours that show the Germans and their Askari troops on campaign and are wonderfully evocative of the war:

http://www.reichskolonialamt.de/inhalt/rehfeldt/rehfeldt.htm

I'm prompted to pull out my HaT Askari and seeing what might be done with them. Twenty-man Feldkompagnies with an attached Maxim and ten Ruga-Ruga and another twenty porters seems fairly reasonable organization to build. Three FK painted and you might add a mountain gun. Six and you might even add a Koenigsburg gun!

Oh, if only Suren had been pulled into this period!

The first of a few...

So then, here it is, my first French unit. You'll recall I my last post that they are HaT infantry with Italeri head swaps.

I've got it in my head that these will be some of Delaborde's men at Roliça. 

I have decided that stage one of this project will be the French order of battle for that action and then stage two (so-called!) will be to build from there to Vimiero.

Let's see how we go.

From Little Things...

Moving on now from 54mm plastics, to the other end of the spectrum - yes, glorious 20mm, but still in plastic.

I was fortunate recently to meet a gentleman who was divesting a large stash of 20mm plastic and without looking too much, leapt.

I have started with French infantry, using this:

And this:

To create this (the blue background is there to create contrast):

Which finally looks rather like this:

Oddly, to me the result looks rather like a teeny weeny Elite miniature.

Lots of inspiration to be had here:

http://rosbiffrog.blogspot.com

With warm regards to Dan...

27th Foot - Airfix 1/32

Ahh, the old Airfix Polythene 1/32 figures. I am pretty sure I bought a box of these with my pocket money when I was about 12!

Charles Stadden

Whilst waiting on certain figures to arrive, I often find myself doodling, as it were, with the paintbrush. Like most other hobbyists, I have a large pile of unpainted lead, sometimes certain items within are - er - years old.

So it was with these Stadden  French Napoleonic figures. Some were from an eBay purchase of a mixed lot, others were from a hare-brained scheme to do the first regiment of Grenadiers of the Guard as a Charge! style unit.

This is starting to look like a series of posts on the classics of wargame figure design of the past sixty years or so.