Uhlan Cavalry

Spurred on by Salute I purchased more goodies from Pendraken Miniatures to add some interesting bits to my early First World War armies.  Of course, this has forced my hand to finish up the dribs and drabs from the last batches.

So here are the German Uhlan cavalry corps complete with command stand. I noticed after the pictures were taken they were not quite finished; still needing the tips of their lances metalled. That has been subsequently resolved.

 

My ability to paint cavalry has improved somewhat since I had a crack at my French Cuirassier bases at the beginning of the project. Bearing in mind I painted a 15mm Hunnic army in between it should hardly be surprising!

 

Next up I'll be having a go at finishing the regimental supporting heavy artillery. 

Goodies from Salute!

As with recent years I have endeavoured to get to the Salute, one of the highlights of my wargaming calendar. I am often accompanied by a non-wargamer, sadly I was unaccompanied this year. There were still plenty of people to talk to.  This year as usual I Spent the best part of the day wondering around looking at games and new products rules and models. Yet again I missed the bloggers meet, although I suspect I do not blog enough to be considered a proper blogger!!

 In any case the purpose of this blog is not to review the show. There are many more capable of that than I. I’d suggest the Madaxeman’s Salute podcast as a good place to start!

The purpose of today’s post is to show off my German Observation Balloon which I acquired at Salute  from Red Eagle Miniatures,  rusted home to build and paint.  It is a lovely model of a  Parseval-Sigsfeld Drachen balloon from Light weight foam ,  with a really  excellent metal  truck containing  the winch to get the thing up and down.  

It was a good opportunity to get the air brush out and give it a lick of paint. I am quite pleased with the way it has turned out. 

I have never done any rigging before and on reflection I think the darning thread I used is way over scale it seems to resemble the rigging and It should  look okay on the gaming table hovering over my  earlier Great War Germans,  spotting targets for off table artillery batteries.

Completed Flight Stands

Last summer I built a dozen flight stands for the air game Check Your Six.

Since then I’ve had them out a couple of times.  I even took the trouble of photographing them with some of my Battle of Britain miniatures. I even uploaded the images!  However despite all of this I failed to actually write a post to accompany the images. 

 

A section of images of a V of Spitfire Is  being followed  by a V of  Hurricane Is at different alatudes

Details about the process of building the stands can be read in an earlier post.

So here we have what amounts to a range of aircraft balanced on radio aerials. Saying that I am quite proud of them and although it can get a bit forestry with the more than four planes in a  particular section of the playing surface these stands offer a really simple and effective way to represent height in the game.

 

One error I made was when I was attaching the aerials I did not attach some at a 90 degree right-angle. This means has you extend the aerial when the aircraft climbs it become unstable.

 

The other issue is these bases are suitable for larger aircraft such as bombers, the whole affair just get too top heavy and topples over. I am still working on the a solution for that. Any suggestions would be most welcome. 

Here are images of  Bf 109Es in the four finger formation flying past.

Thanks for taking the time to look!

 

German Artillery

Last May when I was at Campaign 2015, getting beaten around the MK Centre in the FOG AM competition, which was great fun. I made an impromptu purchase, a German 77mm Krupp field gun in 28 mm. This was my first in 28mm and I was interested to see what it was like. I guess I have been inspired by all the great larger scale displays I have seen at various shows. Particularly with regard to First World War  and the Exhibition games  of Crush the Kaiser.

Nearly a year later I’ve got around to painting it  up and I am quite  pleased with the result. 

The crew had their uniforms painted with a series of washes in different  shades of field grey then   shadows picked out with black ink washes. Finally I have finished the off  a couple of coats of dry brushing, The faces were  blocked out in various shades of flesh, which was then washed over with  a Games Workshop fleshshade wash which sunk into the recesses nicely  following this a touch of dry brushing  over the hand and face finished them off.  Their kit and boots were treated in more or less the  same way with blocking followed by washes and a little dry brushing.  

The field gun was brush painted although I think I will get the airbrush out and spray artillery pieces in the future. Next up will be to tidy up any rubs add some flock and give the a coat of matt varnish  to seal them.

Board Game Cafes and Start Ups

The Preston based Dice and Donuts combines the concept of a board game space and a cafe. Their name on Twitter, D&D cafe first, caught my eye and transported me back to my teenage years spent sitting around with friends avoiding dragons and making rash decisions in sub-terrain dungeons. 

Dice and Donuts is the perfect example of an independent business to help test StreetFlower.

What is StreetFlower I hear you ask? 

StreetFlower is an online map for independent shops and small businesses to engage with customers and their locality. It offers businesses their own digital shop window.

Explore the map, find a red dot, zoom in and "flowers" will appear marking the localities of shops and businesses on the network.  To find out more about a business click on a “petal” to discover their digital shop window. 

Additionally StreetFlower, a start up which I launched in October, is why I have not managed to fit in a game or blog post since then!

So, to another early adopter, Dice & Donuts. who I am doubly pleased to welcome to StreetFlower. 

Anyway, please checkout StreetFlower and spread the word. If you find yourself in Preston drop by and treat yourself to a game in Dice & Donuts. I am sure they would be delighted to see you. 

Completed Crusader

At long last I've finished my Romeo 90mm Crusader so here are some of the pictures.

 

This was the first large scale lead figure I have ever attempted and the clothing and equipment was painted with acrylics and I must admit I would put it down for months or even up to year between painting Sessions. The process of working with quick drying  acrylics on such a large area was very interested and it took a bit of patience to  deal with the white tabard. What was important was  to get the look of engrained  dirt from someone who has been campaigning for some time.

His face and  beard was painted with oils over an Acrylic base.  I used a series of oil washes, followed by a local oil glazes to achieve a weather beaten look. 

Thank you for taking a look and I hope you like it.

Gallic Allies

According to the Field of Glory Mid-Republican Roman army list you have various  options to take units  other ancient tribes and peoples. So  after some consideration  I opted for a battle group of Gauls. I did this for two reasons firstly I thought they'd be fun to paint  and secondly they can be impact medium foot  and hide in the bushes  until they charge out an die heroically on the enemy's  spear tips.

Hopefully  this gives me enough  time to do something clever with my legions and turn the battle  in my favour. So far they have been very helpful in cancelling out the threat of my opponents medium troops. I guess I am beginning to think about this rules a bit more strategically and am starting to understand how to use different troop types for different roles,  rather than simply marching forward and dying.

I really enjoyed painting the Xyston figures, so much so that I am considering acquiring a few sets of Gaesati "tout  nu" guys to give me an extra  set of optional troops. It will  also give me a touch of practice painting some more Gallic shield designs.