Half year review 2010

Well half a year has shot by and it’s time to consider progress against plans and how the rest of the year might pan out. As per the last two years it is a good time to check as the two big events of the year are now past.

So progress in numeric terms

536 Infantry split 259 WW2 (including 100 figures reworked for the big game); 92 Red Russians (finishing my RCW); 66 Janissaries; 29 Dragoons and other odd WSS; 51 Frundsberg Militia for the French Revolution and 39 Btirh & Zulu casualties.

30 Gunners; Mainly WSS using the new Zvezda Swedish artillery

73 Cavalry split 20 ECW cavalry; 18 WSS, just one cavalry unit, the rest artillery outriders; 15 Revolution, mainly Frundsberg Hussars and rebasing 20 Rif cavalry

68 bits of equipment, including 27 WW2 vehicles and 14 guns and limbers for the WSS

101 bit of terrain of which 35 pieces were rework of existing terrain ready for the Rif game.

Overall reasonable progress against plan.

I now need to move onto some of my other targets.

a) Completion of a WW2 US Parachute Infantry Regiment + support (about 100 figures) – now got all the basic figures I need

b) Completion of a WW2 British Parachute Brigade + support (about 100 figures) – now got all the basic figures I need

c) Some sort of Arab/Mameluke army for the crusades. – still on the back burner

d) Finally build a new 28mm ECW army using the warlord plastics broadly based on Sir William Waller's Western Association army, that fought at Lansdown, Roundway Down, Ripple Field, etc. – I’ve got the figures and one cavalry unit painted, but I don’t find the infantry all that inspiring and a PITA to assemble (and I’m a plastic modeller!)

I plan to concentrate on the ECW and completing some of the new WW2 armour I acquired at crewe in February and then move onto one of the two para brigades.

British casualties (Zulu wars)

Moving on here are the finished hit markers for the British. In the background is one of my British regiments, the "Royal Wessex" flanked by a Gatling gun and a Gardiner gun (both lovely Jacklex models)

Again a vertical view for making extra markers.

Zulu Casualties

Yet another set of Black Powder casualty markers, It was just as well I put the shot/dying figures from the Esci sets to one side just in case they came in useful.

This time I created a few with 2/3/4 so I could use them with larger units. It's also interesting to note the change in my painting/basing since I produced the original Zulus back in 1985 (they are 25 years old!)

I also took a vertical shot so I could create some extra to use if needed by just printing out on card and cutting them out. Please use if useful.

Upgrading my trees

A quick update to show the progress on upgrading my trees, so far about half have been reworked. This has involved rebasing, adding new rubberised horsehair and flocking.

On the right is one of the old ones, showing how much hair it has lost (like me) over the last thirty years. The basic armature is copper wire and I just need to open it out to add more horsehair.

The "flock" I used was some similarly aged old scatter material, principally made up of coloured sawdust. It works quite well for leaves, but the problem now is that there is not enough to cover all the remaining trees and therefore I need to find something similar.

On the Workbench - July 2010

Ideally this will be more of a rest month after the sprint to get ready for the SOGG big game and then Gauntlet. So I'm going to concentrate more on what is different.

• Complete the reworking of my deciduous trees
• paint the first of my ECW foot regiments - Alexander Pophams, if anyone has any better information than just blue coats please let me know.
• Black Powder casualty markers for my British and Zulus
• Paint the British armour in the stash - 2 x Sextons, Deacon, Tetrach, Matilda I and carriers

Tifaruin pictures from Gauntlet

Just uploaded all my pictures from the SOTCW game at Gauntlet onto Flickr (link).

The rules were a simple set from Richard baber the editor of the SOTCW journal, hopefully he will print them in the journal sometime soon. The key parts that kept it fun and flowing was the roll every turn for ambushes and events. The events came from a deck which reflected a lot of the features of the wars against the Rifs.

Gauntlet tomorrow

Well after an exhausting few days it's almost arrived, and as usual I have not completed everything I would have liked. Last year it was creating all the new roads, this year I have not managed to rework all my trees, I hadn't realised quite how worn my old trees had become until I started the job. However my first impression are that the reworked trees will certainly pass muster, but I need a lot of new rubberised horsehair.

My original tree are about 40 years old and the bases were curling, but I hadn't realised how much the foliage (horsehair) had eroded, it was less than half the original diameter. What is left is OK, but whereas in the distant past I ad a free readily available supply, now I have to pay expensive prices for it so I have to be more careful as I use it.

A number of old and new trees will be in us tomorrow on the SOTCW game so please pop by if you are anywhere close. Usually the B&B is good value (and free for sellers)

link