A Song of Blades and Bronze... Sea Peoples Archers.

Greetings...


Just a couple of figures for this project this time...
Two Sea Peoples archers...

These chaps have been painted in the same way as their comrades...
I am rather pleased with the blue 'crest' on the kneeling figure.


The Kilts and Helmet Crests are... Citadel...  Evil Sunz Scarlet and Lothern Blue



The miniatures are...
https://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/the-sea-peoples-bronze-age-mediterrenean-raiders

The bases are...
https://warbases.co.uk/product-category/bases/round-cornered-bases/


The paints are Wargames Foundry and Citadel...
https://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/paint
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Painting-Modelling


As before these have been a real pleasure to paint... I have some Northern European warriors in the painting queue so more tattoos and plaid ahead...


All the best   Aly

A Song of Drums and Shakos... British Light Infantry.

Greetings...


Here are a few more additions to this collection... British Light Infantry...


The 43rd Regiment of Foot...

I went for these guys because I fancied painting some British with white facings... they are of course from that... now venerable... Perry Miniatures plastic box set...
I was a bit short of the appropriate arms so I had to sculpt the wings on a couple of figures...




The Tunic is... Citadel... Evil Sunz Scarlet.
The White Bits are... Citadel... Pallid Wych Flesh.
The Greatcoat... Citadel... Administratum Grey.
The Water Bottle is... Citadel... Thunderhawk Blue.
The Water Bottle Strap is... Citadel... Skrag Brown.
The Plume is... Citadel... Warboss Green.
The Knapsack is... Foundry... Buff Leather 7B.


Everything was given a wash of Aly's Brown Liquid.


The Straps were highlighted up to pure White and the Braid was given an extra highlight of Wych Flesh plus some White....


I am pleased with how these have come out... They are nice and bright... Which is what I was looking for... 
They of course now need a Sergeant or possibly a dashing Officer in a Pelisse...


The Miniatures are...
https://www.perry-miniatures.com/product_info.php?cPath=22_62&products_id=1655&osCsid=skanqccc3tiki0nnub28gh34m0


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

And...
https://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/paint


The bases are Warbases...
https://warbases.co.uk/


Something Shiny next I think...


All the best   Aly

A New Book... The British Raid on Essex.

Greetings...
I am reading this book at the moment...

The British Raid on Essex .... The forgotten battle of the War of 1812 by Jerry Roberts...

https://www.bookdepository.com/British-Raid-on-Essex-Jerry-Roberts/9780819574763

This is a really interesting, well written and enjoyable read with plenty maps and illustrations....
Even if you are not interested in the War of 1812... This would make a great scenario for any period

All the best.   Aly

1913 Belgian & French Military Exercises....

Greetings...

Michael Perry just sent me this YouTube clip...
So it thought I would share it.... it’s rather interesting/good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcoXi4uJiMU&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR3qjq8VXnbwJ4bq8MOHW5ov3ONEFuD7lGOhSMxNCesB3pt16a1KZ_SdIKc

All the best.   Aly

Some Walls and a Field...

Greetings...


While setting up the table to have another virtual game with Mharaid I decided I needed some more walls... which lead me to make a field as well...

These are the walls I wanted to use...

They are a set made by Italeri...
They are quite nice if a bit on the fussy side as far as assembly is concerned... There is a lot of bits and pieces...

For the base of the field I used a 3mm cake board cut to size... This one came from our local pound shop... I actually bought all they had.... I know I will find a use for them...

The walls have been stuck together and gaps have been filled with putty...
The cake board has had its shiny surface removed and abused and the walls attached along with an offcut of board to give a bit of shape to the field.

 

I added texture and undercoated the walls and the field with grey primer.... Then realised that I had forgotten to add a few rocks... Sigh!

Everything was painted and highlighted...
I used sample pots from various brands of emulsion...And gave the walls a wash of Aly's Brown Liquid.

 
The field was finished using various kinds of flock and grass matting... again from a mixture of sources.
I also added a bit of additional colour to some of the stones in the walls.

Some views of the walls and field on the table...


I enjoyed making these... It was a nice change from painting miniatures...
I also have enough walls to make another couple of fields... and more than enough cake bases.


All the best   Aly

A Slight Distraction... 40mm AWI

Greetings...


I recently picked up a couple of the Front Rank 40mm AWI to see what they were like...
My butterfly decided that it was time to paint them up...


https://www.frontrank.com/product-category/40mm-awi/

These are lovely... not so little... toy soldiers.
They were a real pleasure to paint... although they took a bit longer than I expected.


Would I paint more of them?


Probably... but not right now... They would certainly make for a nice skirmish based collection.


All the best   Aly

From my side of the table...A Song of Drums and Shakos... Lockdown and Livestock.

Greetings...

Mharaid and I have had a go at playing a little Lockdown skirmish game using a Song of Drums and Shakos...

We chose a Song of Drums and Shakos because its a flexible rule set that we are both very familiar with...

The scenario was fairly simple... Two groups of foragers have to round up as much livestock as they can and collect them at their starting point...

Mharaid (Sgt Shirley) led the British force of Six Light Company men.

I (Sgt Baptiste) led a French force of Six Voltigeurs.

When I say livestock I mean chickens and geese... I couldn't find my pigs and sheep... The Prussians probably got to them first...

The livestock and a couple of surprises were allocated numbers and placed randomly around the table.

We initially used Email and Texts to play our moves... using photos and Photoshop for the visuals, This made things feel very similar to an old school play by mail game...Of course we remembered that we both live in the modern world and fairly quickly moved over to playing live using FaceTime.


The game played out much like our normal games...
Mharaid organising herself and her troops with typical efficiency and rolling most of the good dice...

She did however have a few moves where she rolled some of the worst dice that I have seen from her in quite a while... Leading her to say that she now knows what it feels like to be me.... Ha! Cheeky sod...

I of course floundered around in my usual style and struggled to see any dice rolls over a 3...

There is an old legend that says that there is a side of a dice that has 6 dots on it... This is obliviously fake news... Next thing... people will be saying that the world is round.

So... On with the game... I took a lot of pictures and we played quite a few moves... I won’t use them all but will edit things to give a good flavour of the game...

The initial set up... I used a 4ft x 4ft table as I could get everything in one shot with my iPad.

Names are fun and also make it easy to see who is who.

Mharaid's first move.



A nice orderly advance... Only Tom refused to move.

Here we see Mharaid making good use of  'Group' moves... I failed miserably every time I tried to do this and in the end gave up.




My men wandering all over the place... as usual

Mharaid presses on steadily... The yellow question marks show where the livestock is to be found... 

A double fail... which this is... means that your turn is lost...
So I went no where...

We continued on with mail based moves for a bit longer...

Theo found something.

Jules ended the turn for me.



Fortunately Mharaid's Dino dice let her down.

Baptiste couldn't hit a farm from here.

Theo found Geese.

This is where we really got into using FaceTime... so we started moving along at a decent pace...
I've taken a couple of casualties and Mharaid is herding lots of stuff towards her starting point.

Even when Harry found a very angry goose...

It chased him dutifully in the direction he wanted to go...

The angry goose would chase you in a random direction until you subdued it... Random in Mharaid's case means... back to my place...

A single red button means resting/wounded.

I continue to make stunning dice rolls.

The action moved towards the farm and a protracted fire fight breaks out...after a lot of misses Baptiste managed to shoot Dick.

Dicks demise

As Mharaid's men move towards the farm...

Baptiste gets his brains blown out... Three red buttons...
This triggers a moral throw...

Dutifully failing... Hugo, Henry and Theo don their chicken suits and do a runner...

Cluck! Cluck! Cluck!

WOOF!

When Spot the dog was revealed he would chase his unfortunate victim until he was outrun and then move around the table at random until he found a new toy to play with... Spot could not be fought or subdued...
In the end he was easily out run and then spent the rest of the game visiting all his favourite trees.


This was really good fun...
We spread the game out over quite a few days and spent a lot of time laughing... mostly at my spectacular lack of luck...


I can see us trying this again...


All the best   Aly