22/10/2020

Last of the Greeks - commanders and cavalry

The last but hardest stage of rebasing my Greek army, and it is now completed.
A couple of the mounted commanders were 25mm metal figures, and the other was a Rospak conversion. I gave each one a supporting infantryman, for the others I added some standard bearers from the last remaining hoplite figures. It's not clear if the ancient Greeks used Vexillia, but it looks much better. The Spartan commander was a Rospaks Roman centurion and his standard bearer was a odd Rospak phalangite that I found in a job-lot of figures.
For the Thessalian cavalry I used some Rospaks that had been converted to Companions with tinfoil cloaks. I removed the cloaks, replaced a number of arms and repositioned the heads before adding new cloaks from greenstuff.

19/10/2020

Seven Years War cavalry selection

The last of my SYW cavalry figures, once again using the Revell Austrian SYW Dragoons.

British (Mordant's) 10th Dragoons

Hanoverian Breidenbach Dragoons

Austrian combined horse grenadiers, These had their tricorns replaced by bearskins and painted to match each of my existing dragoon regiments

I decided not to paint any of them as French as there are some nice new WSS French cavalry in the pipeline from Strelets, and I'm sure some of them will be suitable for the SYW or WAS.

14/10/2020

Foreign Legion Artillery

Some welcome support for my French Foreign Legion a couple of gun and loader teams with a pair of Canon de 65 M (Montagne) Modèle 1906 by Strelets
Plastic Soldier review found a number of faults in the uniform, but they are not really noticeable

11/10/2020

British 8th Army Tank crews

A small bit of catching up on WW2 with these Orion figures. They are very nice sculpts, but unfortunately they are a bit too large for some of my 1/76 scale vehicles that are missing crews, so only the figures I will use dismounted are shown, the remainder have been safely stored.
The Monty figure with a mug is a nice touch

07/10/2020

2020Q3 - Progress against plan

Most of the year gone already and I don't see much chance of getting any gaming before 2021. Overall painting progress is still good with 1,655 items completed which broken down by period gives:
  • Ancient 769
  • Medieval 278
  • WW1 241
  • Renaissance 140
  • Napoleonic 133
  • WW2 28
  • SYW 26
  • Terrain 21
  • Modern 19

Looking at the plan in detail
  • An Achaemenid Persian army, I've about 200 items already purchased -completed in Q2.
  • Cruel Seas - British/German/US flotillas of 6 boats each, plus some merchant ships- still not started.
  • Black Seas - a small Dutch fleet (something a bit different from the norm)- completed this quarter.
  • Medieval – More WOTR longbow/bill units, mounted archers, cavalry, Scottish cavalry and extra Crusader foot- completed the WOTR bill/bow units and extra bits for Tannenberg including the Scottish cavalry pretending to be Lithuanians In Q3 more foot for the Crusades were added.
  • Renaissance – Russian Stoldatski, etc. using up the Strelets bonus figures plus Galleys- completed the Soldatski and Town Cossack plus I've started work on the Galleys and their crews.
  • WW2 – bits and pieces (I'll try to avoid buying more)- Managed not to paint any in Q3!
  • SYW – More (French?) Cavalry, British guns- British Artillery completed so far.
  • WW1 – increase/rebase Germans for 1917 and add some French - Completed
  • 28mm – “skirmishing” WSS figures to provide more opposition for my pirates and Spanish- not started yet
  • Terrain – more buildings, fences, balkas/wadis, vines, etc.- Only a few bits completed so far
  • Organise the forces for the Lance and Longbow games at York, which will be Tannenberg 1410 and possibly Montgisard 1177 at Recon- successfully ran Tannenberg and we had agreed to run it at Phalanx in June, but this never took place not at all sure when I'll next get to a show so all on hold for now
  • Q2 addition - I have decided to rebase my Ancient Greeks to match the Persians, so they can either provide mercenary units for them or fight against them.- Virtually all completed except for some cavalry and commanders

05/10/2020

Bedouin Horse Archers

A quick start to the month as these only needed basing. I've used some left over horse archers from the HaT Andalusian Light Cavalry as Bedouins.
I do need more but I'm not sure how to source them as all the sets only provide a proportion of horse archers

03/10/2020

On the Workbench - October 2020

Well another month has passed and we are back in semi-lockdown, at least I have plenty to be working on even if I can't get go go gaming. This month's work includes:
  • Finish off the bedouin horse archers
  • Continuing work on the renaissance galleys and crews
  • Reworking the Thessalian cavalry and Greek commanders
  • Orion WW2 British tank crews
  • Strelets French Foreign Legion artillery
  • SYW Cavalry
  • Possibly start work on Cruel Seas

  • I'm having a bit of a clear out and various bits have gone on ebay
    link

    01/10/2020

    Austrian Napoleonic Landwehr

    I delayed buying these HaT figures until recently as I disliked the rubbery plastic they were using when they were first issued, Since then they have reverted to a more normal soft plastic, so I invested in some. These are 1813 Landwehr, painted up as the 4th battalions of my line regiments.

    I already had two battalions, one of converted Springwood Austrians and the other a very rough and ready reuse of some Airfix Confederates, the later will certainly now be retired.

    The remaining figures will be used in due course for German light infantry and as head donors to make for some of the more unusual Austrian troop types.