Bedouins or are they Rifs?

OK, so I'm back from a well deserved holiday and manged to finish off some units that were started way back at the beginning of the month. These are the Strelets Rifs, that look more like Bedouins. Still a nice addition to my existing Arab forces for early C20.

The foot figures


The cavalry/camelry


Pictures not that good, partly due to the poor light with the rain and maybe the new camera!

On the workbench - September 2019

Well I managed to clear the bench by about 2/3rd of the way through the month so I diverted onto some WW2 bits and pieces and then started work on my Rifs, Bedouins, Mamelukes, etc. So my main focus this month will be on various North African stuff, in particular

• Strelets Bashi Bazouks on foot to provide some more Ottoman rabble.
• Strelets Rifs to boost my Arab Rebellion forces (or to use as Rifs)
• Strelets Mamelukes to provide local opponents for my French in Egypt 1800
• Strelets French Foreign legion in khaki to deal with the Rifs
• To add some variety some medieval artillery

Some WW2 bits to finish off the month

I completed a selection of WW2 vehicles to complete the month.

Firstly the PSC Panzer IIIs I acquired at Britcon completed as mid/late war in winter.


A miscast EWM Light Dragon tractor repaired with PSC maultier tracks (thanks Ian) and behind a Ready to Roll Humber light reconnaissance car.


A pair of Airfix sdkfz 222s with PSC turrets added the front one is old and the rear one brand new.


Another rescue from the EWM miscast bin. it started as the hull for a Panzer 35t, and transformed into a Romanian TACAM R2.


The superstructure is from a PSC Marder, which is quite similar plus plasticard additions, the gun is a PSC ZIS-3

Tidying up the "French" Artillery

So I sat back and tidied up the artillery, my main aims were to remove all the old Airfix gunners and converted guns (Blended Airfix RHA guns and French artillery trails) and to replace all the old Airfix limbers (the originals with the wheels from the guns). In terms of guns it was (from Right to left) 2 x Saxon Foot Artillery; Baden Foot Artillery; Westphalian Foot Artillery (identical to the French except for red collars), Neuchâtel Artillery (Always a nicer alternatie to Young Guard) and 2 x French Foot Artillery.


In reverse. Note I have not bothered with the packs and trimmed back the straps to look sensible.


The first batch of limbers, extreme left Polish Foot Artillery, extreme left Baden Foot Artillery, the other pair are Westphalian.


A second batch, nearest are Imperial Guard Foot Artillery, then Neuchâtel, then a pair of French caissons that I trimmed back to two horse teams, except I did't. I painted two new "limber" teams for the caissons and reused the existing limber teams for the guns.


Of course you realise once you have done this that you need to upgrade the basing on the rest of the artillery!

A blast from the past

While working on my Ox Wagons I also rebased my venerable Jacklex British 4.7 inch Naval gun.

Although I do have the gun crew it has always been used in games as part of a convoy.

More details about the gun on Wikipedia

Reworked Ox wagons

When I worked on the Hat Colonial wagons back in March (link) I complained about the lack of Oxen and that I would reuse my old Atlantic Oxen. I also decided that I would rework a couple of the old wagons, rather than buying any more of the Hat version. So here they are together with some reworked Ox teams.


Here'e the original wagon on the left and the reworked version on the right. The HaT version is behind. Only the wheels and axles were used the rest is scratch-built.

Napoleonic - Pavlov Grenadiers

Got through these relativity quickly once I got going. These are the marching figures from three boxes of Italeri Russian Grenadiers, which are the only ones that would fit on my Napoleonic Infantry base sizes.