Ooops here I go again

I've bought a job lot of second hand models and figures most of which I'll have to trade/sell. I'll be sorting them out over the next couple of days and post a list of what's to trade/sell.

Burgundian references

Since I'm working on my Burgundians I'm using this to keep a record of my references and links.

Links
Top site - Simon Chick's Je Lay Emprins, lovely 28mm figures.
A useful summary of the ordonnance companies flags (mainly low resolution copies from the Freezywater book (link)
Tom Oberhofer's Charles The Bold page has details of coinage and the battles of Grandson, Morat and Nancy (link)
The Muerten (Morat) Panorama has nice details (link)

Books
Freezywater (Lance & Longbow) - The Burgundian Army of Charles the Bold
Hobilar (L&L Journal) Issue 19
Osprey - Armies of Medieval Burgundy, 1364-1477
WRG - Armies of the Middle Ages, Volume 1: The Hundred Years' War, the War of the Roses and the Burgundian Wars, 1300-1487
Casterman(Funcken) - Armies de touts les Temps - one of the medieval pages covers Burgundians
Richard Vaughan's books on the dukes of Burgundy - take your pick on whichever ducal reign you're covering - still best history published in English.
Wargames Soldiers Strategy 64 - the battles and sieges of Charles the Bold. Issue 30 covered the Burgundian-Swiss wars.
Renaissance Armies by George Gush, contains a chapter
Valois Burgundy by Vaughan, which compliments the 4 ducal titles
Artillery of the Dukes of Burgundy by R D Smith and K Devries

Flags
Plenty of excellent images on Dansk Figurspilsforenings
Some useful ones on Warflag
Lance & Longbow - Freezeywater flags using the same artwork as the book above.
Pavises - some decals from Little Big Men (28mm though)
Donnington Miniatures has a couple of Burgundian flag sheets

I'll be adding more as I find it, but any other useful references/links please let me know.

Thanks to Simon and Bob for the updates so far

German Sdkfz 251/3

Back to normal. I've finished the 251/3s that have been on my painting table for ages. I had a bit of a battle fixing the frame aerials, which was not helped by using some epoxy adhesive that didn't set properly!

The DAK version, plus some Sdkfz 10s, a Sdkfz 221 (both from Frontline) and a Horsh field car (Ready to Roll)


The early war European version, the basic vehicle is matchbox and the equipment is a mix of bits from SHQ, the aerial was a simple loop so I added the extra parts from copper wire.

Needles Old Battery

I'm currently taking an enforced rest from painting as I crushed my thumb in the car door - idiot!. So here's some pictures of the Needles Old Battery from my recent trip to the Isle of Wight. (link to the National Trust site)

It's a great mix from the Victorian old battery to the new and then the "secret" rocket testing site, despite being bright there was a gale force wind and a possibility that the site would be closed.

Some pictures of the old battery, the entrance across the ditch.


Overview of the battery


The needles lighthouse, the white crests in the mid ground mark the shoal so that ships have to pass in close to the battery


One of the 7 inch Armstrong guns, luckily when they came to the end of their useful life they were just tipped off the cliff instead of being sent off to be smelted down



Finally, an excellent picture of the battery from the sea taken by Steve the Wargamer, thanks Steve.

Venice - military sights

The are a couple of sites of interest in Venice for anyone interested in Military History/Militaria

First is the armoury in the Doge's palace, cases full of renaissance arms and armour (no photography permitted) and an exhibition with a number of plans of various fortified towns.


The real gem is the Museo Navale Storico, the Naval History museum, filled with ship models, uniforms, etc. It's only 1.55 Euro to get in a real bargain and my wife enjoyed it as well so I got plenty of time to look at the exhibits.

The entrance has an original Maiale (pig) the two man human torpedo used to attack various anchorages used by the British navy in the Mediterranean.


A couple of nice Galleys




The Doge's barge, burnt by the French when they occupied Venice


Some nice figures, I need to look them up in my reference books




A WW2 Italian landing craft.


The Vitoria Veneto


A far eastern collection includes a Korean Turtle ship


A Thai barge


Outside is an enterance to the Arsenal, shame it's not open to the public as it's still a Military dockyard

Sheffield Triples 2013

For once I was just a normal attendee at the show as for some reason the organiser couldn't fit our game in. Therefore I spent most of my times around the trade stands having a good look at what wa new and discussing forthcoming releases.

Just a few pictures from the show of games that caught my eye.
A "Fun in the sand" Sudan game




The best of the show for me, the Ilkley lads Cerignola 1503




Battlegroup Overlord


Gross Beeren, a nice big Napoleonic game, but the buildings seemed rather odd.


A Peninsula Skirmish


Purchasing was very very modest

• Four boxes of the Zvezda 2pdrs
• A Rommel command set from SHQ for my DAK
• second hand Revell SYW Cavalry and Zvezda French Artillery - they will be useful

Still I great day out and good to meet lots of people

Back from Venice and off to Triples

Picked up a last minute bargain just over a week ago so I've had a week in Venice. But only one pictures until after I go to Triples today.

25,000 and counting? – part 3 (or reflecting on life)

Yes, I’ve got 25,000 20mm figures painted, but it has been achieved over forty some years, and reaching a milestone (millstone?) gives me a cause to reflect on my real objectives through all these years of painting, like?

1.      Was my goal to paint the maximum number of figures?

2.      Will they all be used in games?

3.      Did I actually use what I painted?

4.      How many projects were left by the wayside?

Before addressing these and other thoughts, I think I should say that through out all these years, my hobby and the support of other gamers has been a source of motivation despite what life and work has thrown at me.  So on to the answers, which in the main are definitely yes!

1.      No, It was no a numbers game.  I’m a plastics nut for various reasons, partly because you can produce large armies at low cost, but particularly because of the ease of transporting the armies.  Originally by restricting myself to plastics, I felt I was controlling my acquisitive urges, yes I could create large armies, but only in a limited number of periods.  But then the ranges exploded as more companies produced plastic figures.  These days I have to challenge myself before making any purchase of new figures.

2.      Yes, but usage is partly determined by finding opponents, but more often in my early years I found that often no-one could provide an equivalent opposing force, so I always endeavoured to produce armies for both sides in a conflict.  But that said, in my early years we didn’t care so much about mixing 20mm and 25mm.  Some armies have dropped in and out of fashion, for example “Black Powder” has fired up my underlying interest in Napoleonics again.

3.      In overall army terms, they have all been used, but various sub units and add-ons have never seen action.  A better question is do I still want them and intend to use them and the answer is clearly yes.

4.      Luckily, not a lot.  My biggest mistake was in starting a Russian Crimean Army using Esci figures, as so little was produced.  What it did teach me was to wait until either sufficient figures were produced for the period or I felt confident I could convert whatever was missing.

Perils and Pitfalls I’ve encountered

·                The low cost of plastics mean you can easily buy the figures for an army, but do you have the time to paint them before your interest moves on to other subject?

·                Interrelated, than while plastics are quite economic, the extras that might be needed to complete an army may be unavailable, or make it significantly more expensive than planned.  My original Napoleonic Russians were a case of this as I had to buy metal Hinton Hunt cavalry and other bits.

·                Yellow bayonet disease – this was a problem in my early years with Airfix plastics and enamel paints, these days with washing the figures in the dishwasher using acrylic paints and not using figures for casualties the problem is only slightly worse than metal figures.

So where does this leave me in terms of future painting and modelling?

a)             I intend to stick to 20mm with the sole exception of some skirmish figures, e.g. for Saga, but these will be small in number

b)             I will not start any new periods/armies before there are sufficient figures available to complete it.

c)             Concentrate more on a replace and sell or upgrade basis.  Too many of my early figures need a complete rework, like my WW2 Soviets, where I sold off the old units and produced a new coherent force.  My plan for later this year will be to do the same for my WW2 US forces (if PSC bring out it’s US heavy weapons set).

d)             If I keep on using Black Powder or similar. I’ll need more casualty markers

Reality check

a)             Quite achievable

b)             Trouble is some periods tend to morph into others

c)             I’d better watch out for the cases where upgrading turns into more effort than painting from scratch

d)             Make sure I don’t discard “suitable” dead figures

25,000 and counting – part 2

Now for the breakdown of my 20mm stuff by type:

Unit Type	Total
Infantry(I)	18,163
Cavalry(C)	3,885
Gunners(G)	1,729
Other figures(O)	621
Riders (of vehicles/limbers etc.)(R)	459
Pioneers/Engineers(P)	144
Total figures	25,001
Tanks & AFVs(T)	543
Artillery pieces(A)	485
Soft Skin Vehicles(V)	364
Limbers(L)	148
Wagons(W)	74
Aircraft(F)	38
Equipment(E)	30
Boats & Ships(S)	30
Grand Total	26,713

It was quite a shock when I saw how many tanks and AFVs I had, they are only added in small numbers, but they have certainly built up over the years.

The coding has changed somewhat as part of my checks last year on my Excel database. I created a single database rather than the set of individual spreadsheets. “Riders” is a very dubious category as it clearly includes limber riders, and quite a few of the newly added vehicle passengers, but it certainly doesn’t include all the vehicle drivers. So that’s a task for whenever I get armies out for a review.

I'm also considering extending the coding and including all my terrain so I've got a single inventory.

25,000 and counting – part 1

Well a goal of some sort has been achieved as according to my database I have 25,001 20mm painted figures in my collection.  I have to say that the stash is currently at 6,449, so there is no danger of my stopping painting.  But I thought it is fitting to summarise what’s sitting in boxes waiting for games and add links to any army reviews.

Period	Army	Total
Ancient	Gallic/British	527
	Greek	378
	Macedonian	475
	Other Ancient	126
	Parthians	180
	Roman	353
Ancient Total		2,039
C11	Norman	179
	Saxon	216
C11 Total		395
C13	HYW English	213
	Other Medieval	165
	Swiss	172
	Teutonic	197
C13 Total		747
C17a	Aztec	325
	Conquisadore	105
C17a Total		430
C17b	Cossacks	123
	Ottoman	261
	Polish	123
C17b Total		507
C17c - TYW	ECW	16
	TYW Imperial	360
	TYW Other	352
	TYW Swedish	308
C17c Total		1,036
C18a - WSS	Austrian	232
	Bavarian	134
	Hessian	157
	Other	99
C18a Total		622
C18b - SYW	Austrian	445
	Bavarian	208
	British	64
	British Allies	66
	French	60
	Frundsberg	211
	Jacobites	161
	Prussian	421
	Swedish	103
C18b Total		1,739
C18c - AWI	American	466
	British	282
	British Allies	251
	French	236
C18c Total		1,235
C18d - Rev	Austrian	270
	British	145
	French	244
	Frundsberg	144
	Ottoman	44
C18d Total		847
C19a-Nap	Austrian	739
	British	798
	Brunswick	247
	French	2,509
	Misc	28
	Prussian	1,218
	Russian	934
	Spanish	68
C19a-Nap Total		6,541
C19- Nap skirmish	British	90
	French	103
	Prussian	6
	Spanish	42
C19az Total		241
C19b	ACW Confederate	503
	ACW Union	695
	Wild West	22
C19b Total		1,220
C19c	Boers	111
	British	241
	Zulu	508
C19c Total		860
C19d	British	252
	Chinese	63
	Dervish	335
	Egyptian	38
	French	125
	German	96
	Italian	15
	Other	12
C19d Total		936
C20a WW1/RCW	Austrian	83
	British	152
	German	254
	Ottoman	82
	Russian	49
	Russian (Reds)	213
	Russian (Whites)	234
C20a Total		1,067
C20b - Interwar	Afghans	48
	French	35
	German	3
	Misc	28
	Rifs	69
C20b Total		183
C20c – WW2 early	British	66
	French	318
	German	205
	Greek	49
	Italian	43
	Japanese	42
	Misc	3
	Romanian	126
	US	20
C20c Total		872
C20d WW2 desert	British	320
	German	349
	Italian	359
C20d Total		1,028
C20e – WW2 late	British	567
	German	492
	Russian	549
	US	479
C20e Total		2,087
C20f post war	African	156
	NVA	121
	US	92
C20f Total		369
Grand Total		25,001

Notes

This does not include my 28mm ECW and a small number of other skirmish figures (272), plus there are also some 15mm (122) and a substantial number of 6mm (2,652).  – And I’ve just noticed that this doesn’t include my 6mm WW2 stuff.  Dohh!

Only figures are counted, not vehicles or other equipment (see part 2)