more romans

a bit late with this update but i have been working on these Romans, 2 cohorts to add to my legion, total of 33 figures
i decided not to use the army painter quick shade as i find it slower than my own way...
but with a new camera it shows up the painting as it has a good zoom on it, but in the flesh as it were they look good.
next to get them varnished and based then add the shields for the full effect

a home made optio second in command of the cohort after the centurion, made by simply using a spare head from the praetorian set and cutting down the pilum

another conversion just add a spare arm from the veteran set i also used a veteran head in one of the cohorts.

not too much finished but this lot puts me about half way to complete the legion .

elvington

a day out of work on a driver training day at elvington air museum and in between a chance to the planes.
they vary from replica ww1 planes up to modern jets with the biggest being the victor tanker .
some like the ww2 Halifax bomber are kept in the hangers, but some are left outside and look like they could do with some work on them.

such a shame to see these old aircraft in this condition, but at least some look like they are looked after,

overall not a bad place to visit. most of the air base is kept in wartime condition but i think it could do with some more exhibits

i didn't get much chance to take many pictures as it was a work day but i would recommend a visit probably on a day when something else is on as it will not last all day as a place to go for the day.

still burning

another weekend and more gets finished, despite a lull in the last couple of months the desire to paint and game is getting stronger again.
yesterday i picked up 2 more boxes of warlord roman legionaries enough to complete my legion of 10 cohorts. i find it interesting that when i started at the wargames club a roman army was my first choice but it didn't last.
i know the plastics are not much cheaper than metals but at least they are more readily available at local model shops.

so on to today's finished projects, another valiant American battalion for rapid fire, the 60mm mortar crew man has a metal head from the raventhorpe range scale wise it fits ok and as they do french kepis etc a french battalion is possible.

found in the back of a draw were these MLR German para's and 4 SS figures. the SS have been painted as army in splinter pattern smocks and the para's in splinter and tan water pattern.

the German para with the FG42 in the plain green smock is an old lamming figure that i put new arms on and the ammo bandoleer.

i how have enough figures to form a 'add hok' battalion of army and para's if i ever want to join in a game in 20mm scale

also finished today these 2 hovels buildings for the club. even though I've had them for a good few years they have been left undercoated waiting to be done

rome was built in a day

no not the city, just the re basing of these for impetus rules, 20 figures on each base of 12cm by 6cm.

after some planning out to get the figures to look like a cohort in depth and at a ratio of 24 to 1 the 1st cohort had about 800 men making that base need about 33 figures to represent it so that will need about another 4cm adding to the base depth but it should look good.

this is about 1/3rd of my legion plus 2 cohorts of Praetorian, but i should only need to buy another 2 boxes of plastic Romans.

i have today built another 30 Romans making one and a half cohorts including making some optio's using spare heads from the Praetorian set

imagine this lot 3 times over making one leigon, should look good on the table top.

oddball

you guessed it, finally finished oddballs Sherman tank from hat, figures and stowage from valiant

the crew looked ok until i took the pic with a new camera, better lens shows up the paint errors on the second crew mans tash.
the fez was his helmet carved down into the fez

not a new vehicle just been in the box for a while and getting round to finishing it, they have been matt varnished today ready for the faces to be touched up. more rare figures, old foundry ww2 Germans in a skytrex jeep

and the last of my monolith buildings not sure if i should add a bit of grass to brake up the bases a bit.

back on track with figure painting 50 figures done this week along with some buildings

first up valiant Germans in Normandy, with one figure from the classic set, heading for evilbay one day i will stop selling the figures i do and just paint for me.
on the other hand with the next valiant set almost ready for tooling.....a mixed box with each sprue containing 8 German paras and 8 British infantry for Crete it should be an interesting set and see how much can be used with the other sets

also done this week, these old MLR figures found in the back of a draw. with the cross of iron set i'll soon have a battalion lol.

nice sculpts just a shame they are hard to get nowadays.

started and finished 4 buildings, these two from monolith very pleased with the results so i have started 2 more today along with some other ruins and some hovels buildings, also finished 2 faller plastic railway houses that were in a box of broken buildings.

foundry's b team Hannibal smith for scale

so not a bad week, apart from no reply from Wayland games after 2 weeks i have had to resort to pay pal to try to get somewhere, if they would at least reply and let me know if there is a dispatch problem or not.

but as they have charged for air mail i expect my Romans to be out of the country by now...

best movie of the year......so far

and the winner for best movie so far this year is zombieland, very funny, great zombie killings and it does not take its self seriously

woody harrlson is just right as a zed killer, a surprise to see bill murry as himself. well made and full of humor. a must go and see film

the good the bad and the ugly

the game was the good, a 15mm ww2 game set in 1940 France playing as Rommel crossing the river Meuse 12th may 1940.

using Andy Hamilton's very nice 15mm figures and terrain we set about attacking the french, even though we had more troops/tanks/guns etc crossing a river in any game is never easy,
our simple objective is to get one tank/armoured car across the river to win, the french have artillery that may run short of ammo. tanks that may show up on the day and 3 infantry battalions. the Germans have 2 infantry regiments, armoured cars, artillery, assault engineers, and tanks that may show up..

the plan is simple build a bridge and cross the river. i did get a combat engineer battalion across in the rubber boats i even built the bridge and in the moment of our victory my co German player failed his command roll to get the armoured cars across the bridge,

i did almost get a motorized infantry battalion across but half way over the bride the french artillery got a direct hit on the bridge and destroyed 3 sections taking most of the battalion to the bottom of the river still in their trucks..... so with not enough bridge sections left and with no German armour turning up the game was lost.

in reality Rommel's troops almost didn't make it as well.


one of Andy's converted vehicles a command hanomag from SDD, the map table is scratch built

peter pig infantry with a converted horch with 20mm flak gun mounted on it

the start of the bridge, another scratch build but then Andy is very good at scratch building.

the bad, Wayland games. i placed an order for some warlord roman command packs. so far i have been charged air mail for posting in the UK???? (when asked why he blames the post office and says my county does not exist and i should just put lincolnshire)

his web shop says 2 to 3 days delivery and all items in stock. so far 12 days later and 5 days after the dispatched email arrived no Romans have turned up.

as they have posted it air mail i assume my figures are now over seas somewhere

so the ugly is what is happening with the bad Wayland games, my advice is never use them again. i will let you know if they ever turn up...

arriba espana

an early start for the month just finished these anglian/empress Spanish civil war falange militia, making my total of scw figures 50 completed and about a 3rd of the way to the first game in the rompan el fuego rule book.

these figures are such a joy to paint and full of caricature. I've probably out done myself by doing the eyes/eye brow etc.

as most falange were young men keen to follow Franco this one struck me as someone a bit older so i gave him a 9 o clock shadow and made him a squad leader. at least that is what i think the chevron was for

next up for the scw project will be some regular Spanish army for el Franco's side but as i only got 2 packs at partizan i will need some more

so 8 finished and another 42 half done in the first few days of the month, tomorrow a game in 1940 France 15mm scale at the club.

also this weekend i have watched the new stargate universe, so far the jury is still out not sure about it yet even after a double first episode