ALYS TOY SOLDIERS

Monday, 17 February 2025

A little Bunker/Cellar update…

Greetings…

I’ve spent the last few days getting my paint, necessary hobby stuff and a few books into position in the cellar…

There is going to be a lot more stuff going down there but most of it will be temporary while I get the wargames room redecorated and a new table made.

Here are a few pictures…

A view of my desk and shiny new terrain making table/tables…

My desk… This is probably the tidiest it will ever be…

I do seem to have a lot of paint brushes don’t I …. They are not something I like throwing away…

Looking out the room from the Desk…

This is the messy bit that will be getting messier… The blue Coop bags contain books… There will be many more coming down as I move ‘ The Library’ temporarily out of the way…

That ‘Bay Window Shelf’ is going to get quite full… It will eventually be used for storing terrain boards.

At least I can now get down there and paint toys… Hurrah!

All the best. Aly

Saturday, 8 February 2025

Pyrrhus of Epirus… The first Epirote Phalanx

Greetings…

It’s been a while…

I have been moderately busy…

Mostly on organising the cellar…

It’s starting to come together…

I have also found time to follow my butterfly and start something new… something I have hinted at….

The army of Pyrrhus of Epirus…

My inspiration…

I put together a rough plan for a couple of small Epirote and Hellenistic Forces…

After some experimentation I have decided on a four stand size for my phalanxes…

Then I bought some toys from Aventine Miniatures

The first thing I did was a test figure…

I looked to use colours from the two Osprey books plus added inspiration from the rather lovely shield transfers…

The Tunic is… AK Interactive… Carmine AK11091.

The White bits are… Citadel… Pallid Wych Flesh.

The Plume ,Sash and Coloured Armour is… Citadel… Kakophoni Purple.

The Cloak is… Citadel… Xereus Purple.

The Cloak edge is… Citadel… Pink Horror.

Leather bits are… Citadel… Skrag Brown.

Everything was given a coat of Alys Brown Liquid then re-highlighted with the original colour…

Lighter colours were given an extra highlight…

The paints are Citadel and AK Interactive…

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Painting-Modelling

https://ak-interactive.com/product-category/paints/paints-acrylics/3rd-acrylics/

The base is as always…

https://warbases.co.uk/

The shield transfers are Little Big Men Studios…

https://www.littlebigmenstudios.com/

I am/was very pleased with the test figure…

So here is the whole unit…

I’m really pleased how these have turned out especially the soft/subdued colours inspired by Peter Dennis’s wonderful artwork.

They only just fit into my Photo Booth…

This is going to be a slow project to begin with… but once I have everything settled in the cellar… things should speed up a bit…

I am also feeling a lot healthier than I was so hopefully it won’t take so long till the next post…

All the best. Aly

Wednesday, 15 January 2025

A New Year… Again.

Greetings…

So another year has come and gone…

It’s been an odd one… I certainly didn’t get as much done as I wanted… The world , Life , Health and Builders have conspired to getting in the way of me painting and playing with toys…

Anyway here are some pictures…

Shiny Napoleonics…

Rebasing Russians…

More shiny…

The Wild Geese Weekend…

Lion Rampant Wars of the Roses…

More Shiny…

Edinburgh…

And all the dry storage space I will ever need…

I was definitely leaning towards the Shiny in 2024…

Hopefully I will get a bit more done this year… I do have some vague plans and thoughts…

Whether they last the year is another thing all together…

Things that I would like to do more of…

Shiny Napoleonics,

Wars of the Roses,

The War of 1812,

3rd Century Rome,

All these collections would benefit from have more and new units added to them….

Shiny War of 1812,

Shiny Neapolitans,

Shiny ACW,

The War of 1812 and Neapolitans would make excellent expansions to my Shiny collections… Especially the outrageous Neapolitan uniforms.

Pyrrhic and Hellenistic Greek…

This is something I am definitely going to go… Aventine Miniatures do some splendid figures that would be suitable for this…

Make some new Terrain…

I could do with some more flexible boards 600mm x600mm rather than the 300mm ones I have.

Maybe something Byzantine…

Maybe something WW2… The War in the Desert maybe…

Or maybe not…

Of course this may and possibly will all change by the end of the week…

Except for the Pyrrhic and Hellenistic Greeks that is…

Let’s hope my Butterfly agrees with me…

All the best. Aly

Thursday, 9 January 2025

Boxing Day Game 2024

Greetings…

My apologies for the time between posts… and the late posting of the Boxing Day Game…

Shortly after Christmas I caught Flu which combined with my Sarcoidosis and an underlying infection… Basically knocked me for six and lead to two visits to the hospital for Blood testes, chest X-Rays, ECG’s and various other swabs and checks….

I am slowly recovering…Apparently this will take some time…

I am beginning to feel a bit better….And I am starting to think about painting toys…

I have even bought myself some new toys… Retail therapy…. What’s not to like.

So… I’m not going to give a full blow by blow account of the Boxing Day game…. I’m not sure how much I can recall… apart from the fact that I will not be holding a victory parade….

Here are sone hopefully pretty pictures with some occasional comments…

The beautiful village… With the Gavle Goat in the village square…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A4vle_goat

The object of the game was for Rust and Malchanceux to burn the goat for a victory… collecting Xmas dinner and destroying enemies on the way would be a bonus.

The Snowmen had to defend it….