It's the bishops

Another bargain, I acquired a while ago these Valdemar resin figures provide a command stand for my medievals, I'm not sure you would get this many bishops together on a battlefield but the look fun.

Having photograped them close up in good lighting I can see a couple of bits I missed!

The horse fo the mounted bishop was rather undersized so I replaced it with a bigger plastic one. The colour scheme came from the Valdemar packet.

For the flag I hunted around the medieval section of the excellent Dansk Figurspilsforenings hjemmeside medieval section until I found something suitably ecclesiastical fo go with the figures

German winter transport

It's a bargain! Having discovered some heavily discounted die-cast vehicles It didn't take me long to realise that although I had enough German transport overall, I didn't have any for winter campaigning, so an order was placed and after stippling and dry-brushing here they are

Accompanying them are some MMS winter SP and vehicle crews that I bought at this years charity auction that will be used with various vehicles I have already painted.

Russian winter trucks and AT guns

I've had the Russain trucks for a while as I bought them at Bovy last year. It's a reminder to myself that I really ought to take my glasses with me to the B&B and check things properly before buying. Superficially they looked OK but the models were covered in thick coat of spray paint that hid a previous bad paint and construction faults. Once stripped of the old paint the models had to be repaired before repainting, luckily I had some suitable spare parts. The Katyusha took two attempts before I got it looking OK, it's reinforced with steel wire.

The 45mm AT guns are from Plastic Soldier and were no problem at all. All the trucks and guns were painted my Russian green and then stippled/drybrushed white

Museu Nacional Militar - Lisbon

Quite an amazing place, a mix of military museum, ornate palace and tribute to one of Portugal's poets Luis de Comoes (Tripadvisor link) It's situated in the old arsenal and spread out over two floors, be careful about the route you follow as once up the stairs you need to visit the Napoleonic and WW1 collection before heading into the medieval/renaissance armour or you'll end up having to retrace your steps like we did. Many of the elaborate rooms with arms and armour are very dimly lit and flash photography is not allowed.

For example

This photo of Museu Nacional Militar is courtesy of TripAdvisor

To start downstairs, lots of ancient cannon and an amazing ceiling


Intersted in headgear then this is the room for you


Plenty of models of artillery




Interrsted in the ECW or TYW then this is an interesting period when Portugal fought for its independence from Spain.


The room dedicated to Luis de Comoes.


Peninsula War


WW1 quite a few dramatic models and pictures






Back downstairs, yet more cannon.

I couldn't take any pictures because cars were in the way, but the central courtyard is surrounded by pictures of Portuguese battle in blue tiles.

Was it worth 3 Euros - definitely

A few more 28mm Saxons

The final batch of Gripping Beast Dark age warriors have been completed to boost my 28mm Saxons for either Saga or any other skirmish game.

Recon 2015

I battled my way across the Pennines through storm Desmond to get to the friendly local show at Pudsey. it's not a great show for eye-candy, but it's great to meet up with lots of friends.

So only a few pictures, mainly the Harrogate club's Kampfgruppe Pieper game set in the snowy Ardennes. So some ideas for my winter games






We put on the battle of Liverpool again, starting off the first game with a very young participant


Battle of Tawnersley Moor 1643 (an obscure ECW battle) - Nice to be able to read the research that was done.


Bolt action in the jungle!


Purchasing - not a lot as I'm officially not allowed to buy toys in the run up to Christmas. But I picked up some half price items in a traders closing down sale, a box of PSC British Halftracks and on impulse a box each of 28mm Gripping Beast Arab Heavy and Light Cavalry. Then a couple of bottles of paint and that was it.

Yet more cossacks

These are mainly Zvezda figures gained though a trade a few years back plus a few Orion mounted cossacks added in.

I hadn't added any flags to my existing units so I added so extras to these.

The flags can be found on the 1/72 depot site (link)