British Infantry Brigade

Here are the three British Infantry battalions combined into a Brigade complete with support units.

The three infantry battalions are at the front with from left to right, an MG company, transport pool sufficient for one battalion, Brigade HQ and medics


The Brigade HQ and the medics still need rebasing and I realised that I don't have an ambulance! The battalion at the front right still needs its carriers and these are waiting in the stash


Everything OK at this end


Is the end of the rebasing? of course not I still have to work on the artillery, but that'll wait until after Vapnartak at York this weekend

British Motor Battalion

Another batch of rebasing finished, again mainly Italeri, with Hat heavy weapons and some Revell Piat teams


With the exception of the Airfix carriers all the vehicle are by Frontline

Another battalion of WW2 British Infantry

Rebasing Italeri figures this time. I thought I'd add the transport to show how they will appear in action

Vehicles are Airfix QLTs and Carriers and Frontline 15cwt and the carrier with a tilt

French Artillery in Egypt

A change from all that unrelenting Khaki a shift back to circa 1800 with some French Artillery in Egypt. The figures are those from Strelets, but they a really a generic set of Revolutionary wars French Artillery rather than being specifically for Egypt.
Rather than using the guns provided, which looked too big and heavy to use for field operations I use a couple of spares, probably HaT

None of my sources give any information on the train personnel, they were still unmilitarised in France at the time, but if anyone has any more details please add a comment

WW2 British Infantry - Almark

These are my oldest remaining British Infantry, they are the classic Staden sculpts produced by Almark. They are showing their age and I decided on a simple rebase (probably the fourth time)rather than trying to touch them Up as I suspect that would have turned into a complete repaint.

Luckily Charles who looked at my original layout spotted that the grenade throwers didn't have rifles. I couldn't get any way back in the early days, but now I had some in my bits box so that was the only upgrade.

AS with the previous unit the 6pdr is waiting to be replaced

WW2 British rebasing - Commandos

First battalion of my British is rebased and I picked my Commandos to start. The unit is made up of the Esci/Italeri Commando set with a few head swaps, etc for the heavy weapons.

I had checked the Rapid Fire books and scenarios before starting, but it seems that all have a different establishment, so I have just based them and marked tem to use all my existing figures.

Basicall a HQ troop, five rifle troops and a Support troop

DAK 150mm SP Gun

Properly called the "15cm sFH13/1 (Sf) auf Geschuetzwagen Lorraine Schlepper (f)" a rather nice pair of models from 20mm Zone. My only problem was fitting the tracks square on the hull, in the end I just fixed them in place with superglue then added epoxy behind to give a firm grip.



Crewmen are a few oddments from the bits bow rather than the metal gunners provided

Plastic Soldier Company - WW2 British Infantry

So my first reworked British battalion needed to have the majority of it's figures replaced and these were the execellent hard plastic figures from The Plastic Soldier Company.

I had debated whether to upgrade from basic block painting as these figures would benefit from it, but I opted for consistency with the rest of the army

The remaining figures such as the Mortar crew are from HaT. I haven't rebased the 6pdr and crew as hopefully I'll be buying the new 6pdr and Loyd carrier sets from PSC at Vapnartak next month.

On the workbench - January 2014

This month is very much catching up on bits left over from last year and getting started on the new projects

• WW2 British infantry battalion for Rapid Fire and rebasing all my other British infantry.
• French in Egypt - artillery a couple of command stands and camel riders
• WW2 British desert - 2pdr portees
• A pair of DAK Lorraine Schleppers with 150mm guns
• The Russian captured Panther for the SOGG charity build - completed already
• If possible get started on the Egyptian Infantry for the Sudan

My plan for rebasing my British

Plans for 2014

2014 is going to be an awkward year to plan for as we’re intending to relocate home to the South West. Nothing definite decided yet but I suspect it’s going to take up a fair chunk of my time. There will be a big game this year themed around post D-Day, which will tend to prioritise work on WW2 stuff to the early part of the year.

Major Projects (at least 100 figures, month or more in effort)

• Paint at least 3 Rapid Fire US battalions to replace my aging existing forces. Figures will be Plastic Soldier, but won’t get started until the Heavy Weapons set appears
• Finish the Jacobites, by adding French and Lowland units
• Axis winter forces – German/Italian/Hungarian

Minor Projects

• Reorganise/Rebase my WW2 British, this will include painting a box of Plastic Soldier British to replace a unit I have already sold
• Complete the late French armée d’orient.
• War of Spanish Succession – add Austrian Grenadiers and possibly some Saxons.
• Egyptian troops for the Sudan

Other activities

• Try and play at least one big battle from the 1814 campaign in France
• The stash is still far too big; I want to get it down from seven storage boxes to five by the time we move. In line with this, I plan to complete as many plastic kits as possible, there are over 40 there at present so completing these should free up one box at least.
• No new armies until after we move – will be quite difficult to achieve if plastic figure manufacturers bring out something tempting.

Russian Panther

An unusual start for the new year with the completion of my entry to the SOGG charity build. This year's "Paint your wagon" subject was "captured" so I took an unloved Airfix Panther from my sales box and gave it a Russian paint scheme and a couple of crewmen





original photos

Review of 2013

I continued the good progress made in the first half so overall it was a very good year for output.

Looking at my performance against my 2013 plan:

Main projects

• • Make a medieval Burgundian/German force – completed except for some command stands.
• • Sort out the assorted Saracens so I can use Hail Caesar for Crusades games – core army now finished
• • A Jacobite army, mainly of Highlanders, but including some of the possible French reinforcements – completed the readily available figures, but I need to buy the Redbox figures to complete it.

Possible projects

• • Upgrade my WW2 Americans – if rumours are correct The Plastic Soldier Company will be releasing Americans this year, so it would fit in with a clear out and general tidy up of my US forces for North West Europe. – US Infantry are out, still waiting for the heavy weapons before getting started. – this will become a 2014 project.

Other activities

• • Complete the last bits of the British/US Airborne. – all done.
• • Tidy up the last bits of the DAK/8th Army – done, but I’ve still got bits and pieces still to do, mainly vehicles.
• • Late French armée d’orient (trying to make a few French demi-brigades with pretty uniforms and pouffes sound posh) – Four infantry units completed, just need some officers and guns now, but I’ll probably get another box of Strelets to make some light infantry
• • German/Italian/Hungarian forces for “Stalingrad” Eastern front winter game. – not even started
• • Try and play some large 1813 period Napoleonic games, especially as my armies were originally organised for this and this is the bi-centennial. – I played Lutzen and Leipzig, and would have liked to do either Bautzen and Dresden, but the opportunity did not present itself.
• • Attempt to rationalise the stash again - watch my trading lists. – Very slow progress and acquiring a modeller’s heap didn’t help. Started with 7,007 items and ended with 6,288 so not a credible performance, a bit over 700 reduction (10%).

Painting
Splendid output this year 1,794 items painted more than the 1,550 for last year, but as always it’s affected by the mix, particularly this year as there is a higher proportion of rebasing.
By period:

WW2	854
Medieval	395
Napoleonic	230
SYW (Lace wars)	176
Revolution	88
Colonial	49
Terrain	23
Ancient	19
WW1	8
Modern	4

• So WW2 continues to dominate, but this includes a high proportion of rebasing. The main effort was on completion of the DAK and other bits for the SOTCW Tunisia game at Gauntlet and then preparation for the D-Day+6 game
• Medievals covers the work on Burgundians and Saracens
• Then there are the Jacobites under SYW that took a fair piece of effort with all the tartan.

By period:

Infantry	871
Rework/Rebase	333
Cavalry	138
Vehicle Riders	105
Gunners	99
Vehicles	48
Tanks/AFVs	35
Artillery guns	30
Commanders	29
Other figures	29
Engineers	25
Terrain	23
Equipment	20
Wagons	5
Horses	4

• Here the extent of the Rebasing/Rework is obvious, it was all WW2 with the exception of a few Napoleonic Generals
• There are a couple of new categories to help me keep track - "Commanders" to ensure I separate out sufficient figures for these at the planning stage and "Other figures" to cover casualry bases and other non-combatant figures

Enough of the old year - on to the new

Happy New Year - and a colourful end to the old

French Infantry in Egypt must be one of the most colourful armies around and I just managed to complete these four units before the year ended.



Lovely figures and I'll have to get another pack of these Strelets French Light Infantry in Egypt to make some light infantry and a couple more units

Wishing everyone all the best for 2014