Some painted figures for 1897 .

I've been busy painting some figures for my wargaming colleague 'A' who wanted some French for his 1897 collection to complement the British and Germans I painted a year or two ago . The figures are 28mm Irregular Miniatures.

Colonial Turcos , the units are designed to be used with 'A Gentleman's War' and gloss varnished to match his existing ones.

Chasseuers d' Pied , these are to be used as 'Marksmen' and so only number 6 figures .

Gun and crew on an Artillery base from 'Warbases' .

French Dragoons again from Irregular.

He also wanted another unit of German cavalry , so I painted up these Hussars .

Personality figures can play a large part in AGW , so 'A' provided these 'Willie' and 'Stadden' figures which I have painted to suit the various protagonists . These figures should be appearing on the tabletop soon .

500 miles done ! .

Well I've just completed my 500th mile in 1000 mile challenge and am celebrating with an ice cream , note how the dogs attention is somewhat distracted from the photographer's attempts to get him to pose .

An early start to the week .

Been a bit of a topsy turvy weekend , the dog has been to the vets for surgery to get his anal glands removed - it's a Spaniel thing they commonly suffer from it and he's started having painful abscesses on them so the vet though it best to remove them ( I don't think he will mind me discussing his medical matters with the world in general )  . Then my order from Irregular arrived ! .

The evil eye ! 

The upshot of this saw me at 5.30am this morning in the garden spraying figures with a black undercoat . I recently sold most of my Ancients off and have re-invested the money in 40mm Irregular Turks - being the logical thing to do to match my vaguely Balkans themed armies . Please excuse the state of the garden we've been on holiday and everything has shot up whilst we were away (well mainly the weeds and grass) and I'm in the process of reclaiming the garden (but being distracted by Toy Soldiers) .

This will be my General - Omar Sharif  he's made up from bits from their Deutsche Homage series .

The basic Line Infantry, wasn't sure on the firing pose but he's growing on me . I have a lot of other figures to paint for somebody else so it may be a time before these hit the tabletop but at least I've made a start.

" Now what's he up to ! ? "

The title is a quote from my dear wife to the dog as she entered our back garden . She knows me to well to think that the wood working will be domestic and must be for " your little men " . A progress report will follow or an embarrassing silence as the resulting debris are feed into the log burner .

Clash on the Glavna cesta , a AGW battle (part one)

My wargaming colleague 'A' and I are going to play a series of 3 linked AGW games , the result of one leading to the next scenario . Game one is an encounter between two advance guard forces meeting whilst moving down a border road between Treboria and Ferraro Rocher . 

'A' sent me a 40 point force for Treboria - 2 Dragoon units , a Horse Artillery gun , 2 infantry units , a detachment of Sharpshooters and a unit from the famed British Legione . Here we see the first elements of his force entering the table.

I chose 40 points for Ferraro Rocher , 2 units of Hariboan Lancers , 2 units of Mounted Gendarmes and 3 units of Infantry . The cavalry move onto my end of the table.

'A' has a 'Mad Scientist' with a 'Infernal Device' as a Cameo appearance.

I drew 'Oscar Wilde' ! 

My leading unit of Lancers (which are classed as swift) with the addition of a Ace card managed to move twice and deploy well in advance of the rest of my forces (the old pennies denote that the units have activated) , part two of the battle to follow soon ……….

Having A Right Sort Out ! .

I've recently sold off a lot of Ancient figures,  collections which have not been used of ages and I didn't think I'd ever really use again . This has left me with money to spend (more of which in the future) and perhaps  more important - space in the plastic boxes they inhabited . This has allowed me to sort out some figures that have been bundled away under my wargaming table for ages and will allow me to get around to using them . My Darkest Africa figures - collected nearly 20 years ago and in my pre-blogging era used a lot .  Here are the Natives in this box.

Here the Zanzibar Arabs and a load of casualty figures , these were some of my favourite figures - full of character . The bases are for baggage elements.

The British , Native Askaris and Explorers with the Porters bearing various loads . There have been a few breakages (spears mainly) and some of the paint and bases could do with 'tarting up' , It took ages to sort these out as I kept coming over all nostalgic over various figures . I now hope to get these back onto the table in the future and am wondering which rules to use .

Tribal Chieftain , drummer and Witchdoctor .

Arab Leader and attendants .

European Explorers , if I remember rightly the chap at the front is Stanley .

EBay find .

Just arrived in the post , a box full of 40mm lead figures , bought very cheaply off eBay - nobody else bid on them as the were a bit 'hidden' on an antique book sellers site . 

Here we see one of them next to an Irregular figure - large 40mm describes them best . The are 1890ish French and semi-flat cast using pure lead I would say , some have a bit of paint on them but cleaned up , straightened out and based they will look okay . It looks like a French contingent is going to arrive to take part in the Treboria - Ferraro Rocher conflict .