Free French Foreign Legion

I've always wanted to refight Bir Hakheim and Naqab Rala from the western desert campaign, so once Strelets released some suitable figures they had to be acquired and painted.

A platoon (or Rapid Fire battalion) with the extra support of a pair of First to Fire 75mm guns

Little & Large - ACW Artillery

A pair each of Strelets Whitworth Rifles and 30 pdr Parrott Rifles. The supplied crews have been mixed up somewhat to provide a couple of heavy gun crews with 4 man crews and four light gun crews. I painted one of each figure as either Union or Confederate.


The Whitworths are nearest with Confederate crews.


I checked to see if the mortar crew would also fit with the 30pdr.

One wagon - three periods

I decided to create three different versions of the HaT General Service Wagon to provide support the my armies. From L to R Sudan, Zulu War and WW1 in the middle east.

Nice models that fit together well, especially as compared to when HaT used that very bendy plastic. I just made some head swaps to make the crews suitable for the different eras.

Wagons roll! - across the veldt

Two boxes of Hat Ox Wagons completed to replace some old Atlantic wagons I have used with my Zulus for too many years. The problem is the shortage of Oxen in the kits so I will have to rework some of the old oxen to use with these.


Although I'm using four oxen for a team in reality it would be twelve or more


By luck the barracades I use with the wagons to make a camp slide easily inside the wagons so I didn't need to add stowage, Here's the laager deployed.

WMMS 2019

Had a great day at WMMS yesterday, a good game, met up with plenty of friends and plenty of eye candy. I was part of the SOTCW group putting on the Commando raid on Vaagso 1941.

The table all set up and ready to go


Richard Ps harbour area


and Ulversund hotel


Most of the remaining terrain was mine with some fro Andy C





The Japanese Invasion of Indonesia 1942 - I liked the "cactus patches" made from an Aldi door mat.






Algeria 1837 in 10mm




A Highland uprising with an opposed landing




Big boys toys 28mm tanks in action




English Civil War




Renaissance - native uprising somewhere in south america




Napoleonic Peninsula game






American War of Independence








Waterloo - Napoleonic Poker




Great Northern War - Swedes & Russians






Seven Years War - not sure about the carpet as a cloth


Not much booty, a Blotz fountain and a pair of Fabbri BA64 armoured cars

AWI Rebasing - first batch of Americans

To start the rebasing of the army I started with the figures where just the bases needed work and there was only minor touch ups of the paintwork.


So dominantly the work was on the horde of Rifles that are in the army and each unit has been given different basing


Cavalry was simple conversions of Airfix Napoleonic British limber riders. Originally I considered basing the greatcoated infantry in snow to use them for the assault on Quebec but luckily thought better of the idea.


The artillery was originally AWI figures reworked for the SYW and then brought back to the AWI when SYW artillery became available.

Camel drawn limbers

I blame the Perrys' I saw their version of a camel drawn limber in their French in Egypt range and I had to have a couple. Luckily I had a few spare Italeri Camels (thanks to David P) so I carved the saddlery off and added the harness using green stuff to get a passable likeness.


The handlers are a couple of Redbox Ottoman sailors and the limbers are HaT French Artillery limbers


Here's the cause of all my work

On the Workbench - March 2019

Reasonable progress last month, but not quite enough as there is still a lot in progress at the moment

• Camel drawn limbers - nearly completed
• Matelot drawn limbers! - not yet started
• WW2 Free French - not yet started
• Rif wars French - I decided to delay these till later in the year as Strelets have shown some masters for another set
• Zulu Wars wagons - well underway

New additions

• Start rebasing my AWI American Rebel forces
• My newly acquired British colonial and ACW artillery (only 2 guns of each of the ACW sets)
• 28mm! Wargames Factory War of Spanish Succession figures to fight my Pirates using Rebels & Patriots

On the 10th I'll be down at WMMS participating in the SOTCW Vaagso 1941 game, then at the end of the month playing the invasion of Malta 1942 at Sheffield.