It's Christmas

and I've been good again, so a nice selection of presents were under the tree

So what do I plan to do with them:

• The Stradioti will provide Light Cavalry for the wars in the Balkans against the Turks and potentially for a future Italian Wars project (but I'm not starting any new periods)
• Roman Senate - will be used for civilians and also have potential for some sort of skirmish
• Tecumseh - more reinforcements for my woodland indians
• Red Army of the Winter War - reinforcements for my WW2 Russian winter forces now I have created more than enough Axis.
• Romanian Infantry - I had forgotten these when I created my winter Axis forces
• Soviet Assault Group - Engineers for my Russians, I've only got a few so far
• Honours of War - Has had good reviews and I'd like to try them with my SYW forces
• Fighting Sail - buried away somewhere in the stash is a large number of Napoleonic ships, hopefully this will inspire me to get them out assemble, paint and use them.

M21 Half tracks

I had always been short of half tracks with mortars for my US forces. I had hoped that the Hasegawa M4A1 version would have met my needs (link) but I couldn't face getting any more. Gradually I found a couple of diecast M21s at reasonable prices (thanks Bob) Then they appeared cheaply on ebay so I bought a couple more so I could replace my two existing models. They needed repainting to match and crew added.

The crew are from the Plastic Soldier US sets, which I had spare. The old vehicles will go on ebay in the new year

Ottoman Artillery C16/C17

My Ottomans now have their own artillery, up until now I've used some Cossack gun crews instead. These are the new figures from Redbox and they come with a number of extra figures that can be dotted around the guns.

There are two set that for the Sixteenth century (left) and another for the Seventeenth (right). The guns are the same but the figures vary between the two pack
The hot is odd, I found references to it being either red or black so I went for a dark red!

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