Recon 2024 - last show of the year

Quite an exciting journey across the pennines and back to Pudsey, Leeds for the Recon show due to Storm Darragh. It's quite a friendly low key show with a good selection of traders. There was very little eye candy, the only eye catcher, which I've seen before, was Yarkshire Gamers battle of of Mentana 1867.

I was involved in the Lance & Longbow Society what-if game set in the Hundred Years war, the War of Saint Sardos 1322-1323.

If I ignore the weather it was a great day out, thanks to Steve, David, Andy and Si.

Napoleonic Russian limbers and crews

Back in the summer I 3D printed some Russian limbers to replace my very old crude Airfix conversions, but then I discovered some files with replacement limber riders that I acquired in a late summer sale and then printed in my final 3D print run for the year. So I have drawn them together with my old Airfix RHA horses to produce my new replacements.

Foot Artillery on the old RHA horses

Horse Artillery on the Zvezda limber

A review of the Russian artillery reveals that I have 3 guns/crews too many and that I should replace all my old Hinton Hunt gunners (4 crews) and replace them with a single crew from my spare Zvezda figures to match the rest of the Foot Artillery Gunners. Obviously I still need to upgrade the gunner basing.

The Horse Artillery Gunners will be upgraded late next year when I get chance to print some bespoke versions acquire in a Black Friday sale.

La Garde au feu - part 3

Having finished the Guard Fusiliers I moved onto the Young Guard and painted up a battalion each of Tirailleurs and Voltigeurs that I had 3D printed to match the size of the rest of the Guard and replace my old first edition Springwood figures.

I haven't attempted to depict particular units of the Young Guard, so the uniforms are quite generic.

They did have an amount of disruption as I had to spend a week away in the middle of painting them and I'm certain that my hands are not as steady as they used to be when painting fine lines.

On the workbench - December 2024

November was a bit of a wash out painting wise as I over ran on the 3D print run and then lost substantial time with a family crisis. Hopefully this is all behind me and I'll try and catch up before the Christmas festivities interupt progress. So I hope to complete the following before the year ends:-

• Two units of French Young Guard infantry - just finishing being painted and then onto basing
• A pair of French Latil Field Cars - already base coated
• Two units of SYW Prussian Frei Corps - Von Kleist Hungarians and Le Noble Jaeger - already base coated
• Plastic 28mm Female Gunfighters
• Two units of Napoleonic Prussian Cuirassiers
• A single crew of the Spanish Brigade Maniobrera Horse Artillery
• A unit of SYW Prussian Line Jaegers to replace my old Revell conversions
• Rebase four units of Napoleonic Wurtemberg line infantry and add new 3D printed command figures
• Rebase my assorted Napoleonic Russian limbers and add the new 3D printed limber riders
• Rebase four units of Napoleonic Bavarian line infantry and add new 3D printed command figures
• Several Russian 76mm Putilov Field Guns

My one regret is that I planned to put more of my surplus on eBay , but I don't think I'll get chance before Christmas

Some reflections on my last 3D print run.

So my last 3D print run didn't start well as I failed to realise that the 8K resin I was using was IPA washable not water washable. But it did produce more resilent models and therefore it was better for printing 20mm figures. So I bought some IPA and an extra bottle of the resin and got to work. Unfortunately although the weather stayed warm the thick cloud meant that curing outside was very slow. Figures I could manage but the base plate was still tacky for the next run which could have affected the adhesion. Luckily it didn't and I managed to print everything I thought I would need for the winter until the weather warms up again. In total, I managed to print:

• Sufficient Napoleonic Russian limber riders to upgrade their limber riders and add a few more
• Four units of replacement Napoleonic French Middle/Young Guard
• Three units of replacement Napoleonic French Young Guard skirmishers
• Four units of replacement Napoleonic Italian line infantry
• Four units of Napoleonic Spanish round hat infantry
• One unit of Napoleonic Spanish round hat infantry skirmishers
• Another 28mm unit of SYW Prussian Jaegers
• An odd collection of scientists in lab coats (they were free and I couldn't reist)
• a pair of WW2 Schwimmwagens where I had added the crews
• A pair of WW2 Laffly V15R where I added the crew (thanks to Dani for the STL)
• A unit of Napoleonic French line infantry fusiliers skirmishing
• A single possible replacement WW2 British 5.5" gun as a replacement for my aged Airfix versions

So why so many? Well when an error occurs on wnat you hope will be the last batch and then you need to print a replacement but you then fill up the batch with your next idea and then it goes on.

A "slight" change to plan

Last Monday I just finished the last batch on the 3D printer and had cleaned it up and about to get into the swing of painting more figures. But there a family crisis so it was off to Wiltshire for the rest of the week.

Despite Storm Bert I managed to get home again on Sunday. During Saturday evening I was quickly checking Facebook when I discovered the Reveille was on in Bristol so I managed to pop in for a short break on route. I met up with a number of familiar faces and one blog follower. They were running one of the upcoming Rapid Fire Reloaded scenarios set in North Africa and I took a few very poor pictures on my phone.

La Garde au feu part 2

Well, my painting out put maybe slow, but I have tried to get on with the 3D printing while the warm weather lasted and it seems to have come to an end. The cloud may have helped retain the heat, but it also kept away the UV I need to cure the figures outside!!

So in the meantime I have painted two units of the French Imperial Middle Guard, the Fusilier-Chasseurs (right) and Fusilier-Grenadiers (left) using 3D figures I printed to match the size of the Springwood 2nd edition French Grenadiers used for the Old Guard, etc.

The units will replace their predecessors made with 1st edition Springwood figures

I have left the decision on what to do with the old Springwoods to one side for now.

On the Workbench - November 2025

Not bad progress in October, excepting the 3D printing, which I must get started on before the temperature gets colder. As for painting I plan to work on.

• Plastic 28mm Female Gunfighters
• two units of French Middle Guard infantry
• two units of French Young Guard infantry
• two units of Napoleonic Prussian Cuirassiers
• a single crew of the Spanish Brigade Maniobrera Horse Artillery
• two units of SYW Prussian Frei Corps - Von Kleist Hungarians and Le Noble Jaeger
• several Russian 76mm Putilov Field Guns
• a pair of French Latil Field Cars

Crusader gun tractors

The last of my October output is a pair of 3D printed Crusader gun tractors as used to pull 17pdrs by the 5th bn Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders (91st A/T regt RA) that were the anti tank regiment of VIII Corps.

Ford Model Ts

I have painted my first pair of Ford Models Ts for WW1, one for my desert British and the other for my Russians. I was hoping to find some suitable crews for them as STL files, but so far no luck.

I have also started on creating a pickup version digitally.

Napoleonic Austrian Commanders

Not being satisfied with my old Esci/Airfix conversions, I bought some STL files of Austrian Generals, I didn't bother with the horse as I already had some excallent ones bought earlier. I combined the two digitally to create four variants even though I could have created more and printed 20 figures, which would have met my needs.

Typically once I started painting I discovered that some of my old figures were still adeqaute for my needs so I kept them as well and they can be seen in the back row.

The rest of the French Napoleonic Line rebased

As previously mentioned I expanded my existing four battalions into five by adding in the extra resin command figures and some left over Grenadiers from their rebasing.

Overall I was short by just two fusilier figures so I added in a couple of 3D printed figures that were a close match and they are shown in this battalion.

Extra ECW Artillery

A small boost for my English Civil War army is a second gun and crew, all 3D printed and scaled up to 28mm from the masters in 15mm.

For ECW the difference in detail doesn't seem to matter to much.

La Garde au feu

It has taken some time to get to the point where the rebasing and upgrading of the French Imperial Guard and friends is complete. The figures are a mix of my old hard plastic Springwoods and some newly 3D printed command figures.

The Old Guard Chasseurs

Old Guard grenadiers

3rd "Dutch" Grenadiers

Italian Guard grenadiers (left) and Velite Grenadiers (right)

Saxon and Westphalian Guard Grenadiers

Foot Artillery of the Guard, I bought some files so I could replace the old Italeri figures, even though they had already been rebased.

Booty from The Other Partisan

Still no inspiration on what to start next but lots of inspiration especially around either Victorian style Jack the Ripper or Sherlock Holmes or possibly Gangs of Rome. My purchases were moderate

The aquisitions and my plans are

• The Mars Russian Dragoons look good enough to make some Prussian Cuirassiers for 1813
• The 76mm Putilov will go to my RCW White Russians who are short a few
• The 100mm M14 was widely used after WW1 by various nations including the Italians and there are lots of possible uses
• The Latil Field Cars will go to my WW2 French as I have been unable to find any I can 3D print
• "The Road to Carentan" has some nice scenarios for my US paras and I may try one at the club on Thursday
• Plus some top up paints

Trip to "The Other Partisan"

Simon from the club very generously offer to drive us over to Newark for "The Other Partisan" so Andy and myslef joinied him for the trip. It was a great day out and here are the pictures I took

Boondock Sayntes - Tip and Run in East Africa

Derby Wargames - Operation Goodwood

Ficticious AWI battle

Lutzen

Vietnam (in the Lard Zone)

Sharp Practice

Simon Millar - WSS version of King & Parliament

Old Pikeys - Market Garden

Yet more WSS, lots of eye candy

Perry's - Aboukir Bay

The Bodkins - "after Zorndorf" SYW

A few extra pictures from my phone after both my camera batteries died.