Real life continues - with some progress.

 

I have been debating what to do with the reclaimed hen run and am leaning towards low maintenance. With this in mind having a lot of old bricks and a lot of stones which you find as soon as you dig into the soil I have decided to brick and cobble the area with spaces for plants - I am going for the 'Rustic' look and rather making it up as I go along . My neighbour, a man who used a laser level to put his fence and patio in wore a frown whilst looking at my handy work , I am employing what my father referred to as the "rack of the eye" !

Of course no DIY project is complete without the odd flesh wound !- not as bad as it looks - my wife enquired why I wasn't wearing gloves ?

Talking of Mrs K she has been busy renovating the garden seat (something I have been meaning to do over the last 15 years) The dog has to supervise by lying in the hottest place in the garden rather than the shade.

Just to reclaim this blog back to Toy Soldiers - here we see a patrol of Nuevo Ricocian Infantry on the look out for smugglers.

The figures are a few extra 28mm Copplestone Miniatures I have painted up for my Nacho Wars project.

 

Garden Toy Soldiers in the sun.

 

Whilst all the 'real world' work is going on I manage to snap a couple of pictures of a patrol of the Borcesters on patrol in the borders of the Great Patio lead by the redoubtable Sergeant Kyte ..

These are odd figures that appear quit often in various guises on eBay ., they are semi flat about 50mm tall (a tall 42mm figure and a short 54mm one) and I'm not sure which collection they will fit in ?. I would say they are home-casts from an old mold.

They are not very stable (the two outdoor photos took ages to snap as they kept blowing over) , so I'm sticking them to bases . Here they are with another few figures from a previous batch which were badly painted (daubed) I've stripped and been doing some repairs on them and I'll undercoat and paint up to match the others. 

Real life intervenes .

So we have decided to alter the layout of the garden , the top half was a hen run but having only one hen left we decided to get rid of the run and redesign things . At the moment it looks like a bomb has gone off !.

Our new sundial mounted on a granite plinth . I 'acquired' several of these when I was at work - they are rather heavy and I heard they had originally been kerbstones from Glasgow !?

I got another couple of hens from a society that rescues commercial battery hens and this joins the original one in the new hen coup - which came as a flat pack and took a lot of swearing to put together. !.

The new occupants who refused to pose for the photo , they seem to be settling in okay and we even have had a couple of eggs . All this means there is little modeling or wargaming going on , hopefully normal service will resume soon ......

 

Saint George's Day

Always thought it a bit sad that the English don't make more of Saint George's day compared to the Scots and Welsh. 

 

Reclaiming 'Buffalo Bill' .

 

The Witch's brew - I have decided to strip the entire 'Buffalo Bill' model .: Another mysterious figure .and so left him and his mount overnight in neat 'Dettol' to bring the paint off.

Getting ready to clean up the figures - rubber gloves and a [very] old toothbrush .

Cleaning off the gunk under a running tap - I didn't grow an extra arm or balance the camera in my mouth I am indebted to Mrs K for her assistance ("I hope you clean the sink out !")

The finished result , the horse has had extensive repairs to it's neck using 'Milliput' , which was a bit of a surprise , there is a lot of detail on the rider , most of which was obscured by the paint . I hope to get them undercoated and start painting them next week. 

The road to Palermo Part 2 (a strange little game)

 

The 'Thousand' finally came onto the table , both sides where rather tardy bringing up reinforcements 

The Piccollotti did sterling service holding up the rather lacklustre Neapolitan Light Infantry who rolled a couple of 'blunder' rolls and failed to close with the enemy. 

Garibaldi finally deployed his forces as time was running out .

The Neapolitan High Command who dithered through out the game and where slow to react.

I had allowed 12 moves for the game and with both sides reacting slowly neither came to grips as time ran out - a victory for the poorly lead Neapolitans as Garibaldi failed to break through . A poor performance by both sides - a strange little game but nice to get the figures on the table again . Garibaldi needs to buck up if he is to conquer Sicily and oust the Neapolitans .

The road to Palermo.

 

It occurred to me that I haven't put up a battle report for a long while and also it's ages since I fielded my Garibaldi collection on the tabletop .. Here we see the man himself leading his 'Thousand' inland after landing at Marsala and moving inland towards Palermo  .

The locals rally to his banner and the 'Piccolotti' lead by Friar Pantaleo skirmish before his advancing force .

The local Neapolitan General hearing of the enemies advance  rushes his force to intercept them.(the Brigadier has a tactical rating of only 6 - so perhaps not much rushing)

The leading Battalions of Light Infantry march through the village in the Sicilian sunshine .

The table set up , the Garibaldini arrive on the road on the left and the Neapolitans through the village on the left . I will be using 'Black Powder' rules for the game and will report back soon. 

 

A frustrating task !

 

I thought it was time that I did some more figures for my 54mm ECW project. Now I have been putting off gluing up some of the pikemen as it is very difficult to glue the pikes into the figures hands . As the figures are a rather stiff plastic and the pikes a very bendy one I ended up using super glue as the polystyrene glue doesn't seem to work. Well after a very frustrating hour and a half I've got them done , my finger ends are covered in glue as is my cutting board - what a b****y faff !- I remember why I put off doing them , anyway they are done and I will get them undercoated tomorrow .

Bringing up the BIG guns .

 

I bought this Britains 18" Howitzer just before we went on holiday and have just got around to checking it out . I've been after one for years and with the shells etc they can be quite expensive , however this one didn't have the ammo and the barrel was lose so it was going cheap . Here we see Charlie inspecting it - having found it isn't food he loses interest .

Here we see the Gunners of Army'Red' manning it with General Crawley and of all people H.G. Wells in attendence . I rather played up it's damaged state and got a bit knocked off the price but with a bit of TLC I managed to get the barrel remounted and the elevating screw to work .

Here we see the General inspecting the breach mechanism , I must keep an eye open for some of the shells and casings on eBay.

A view down the impressive breach and barrel of the Howitzer , it just needs a bit of a clean up and it will be ready for tabletop action. Just done a bit of research and I believe this model was produced from 1955 and was discontinued in 1980..

Toy soldiers in art No.27

 

Found this on the interweb , French WW1 era I would say, I think I've seen the child as a model in another similar card . Google translate gives me  - "to give the artillery" ? and the blue stamp across the card seems to say - "56th Regiment Territorial"? , I wonder that is something to do who posted it ? . The figures are interesting  large scale ones, I think I've seen something like them before , they could be Bon-Dufour composite about 5" tall (thanks Brad DeSantis for the info in a previous post) . I wonder if it was hand coloured ? and lke the use of real earth for the trenches - don't think the young chap is going to miss at that range!

A visit to an old friend's table.

 

Whilst we were on holiday in the Peak District,  I popped in to see my old wargaming  colleague 'B' . I've been trying to remember how long we go back and think it must be over 35 years (maybe going on to 40?) , since he and his family moved down south we don't get to play many games nowadays  .

He has his table set up in his shed and was mid-game refighting a battle in German East Africa (using 'Comtemptable Little Armies I think ?) With 28mm figures.

Some of his extensive WW1 figure collection and a smattering of 10th century Saxons on the box for 'Dux Brittaniorum' 

'B's sanctuary from a household of womenfolk,  it was nice to see his new set up as over the last few years he hasn't been able to have a permanent table. When we lived in the same town  we used to game very regularly and we do still have the odd game now and then when he's up North visiting family.I do find seeing other people's wargaming set ups interesting and it was great to catch up with him and his family again.

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