Painting desk update… and yet another book.

Greetings…

As it’s been a couple of months I thought I would let you see the state of my shiny new desk.

Before 

Now

I think the desk is bedding in nicely and managing to get creatively cluttered…

I also saw this book in Waterstones and bought it on the title alone… it looks interesting.

All the best.  Aly

A bit more family history…

Greetings…

A while back I posted about a souvenir book that my mother was given at the end of World War Two…

https://alystoysoldiers.blogspot.com/2021/04/an-old-book-and-bit-of-family-history.html

When I said that my grandmother and mother had worked in the cafeteria/tearoom of Falkirk Ice Rink I had assumed that it was quite a small venue…

How wrong could I have been…

https://falkirklocalhistory.club/around-the-area/recreation/falkirk-ice-rink/the-second-world-war/

It would appear that it was quite a ‘hip’ place…

And the Polish troops were actually stationed very close to the venue…

The  Ice Rink closed in 1977 so sadly I won’t be able to make a visit next time I travel ‘up  north’

I have also found out that it was indeed  HQ 1st Polish Corp that was stationed in the area…

I shall continue digging into this… 

All the best.  Aly

Something Shiny… and an interesting book.

Greetings…

I think it is time for some Shiny Napoleonics… 

So here we have a few Eclaireurs De La Guard Imperiale… The 2nd Regiment to be precise.

I found myself with four S Range castings… So I decided to do one ‘Tiny unit’ as group of Vidette’s and a single figure to act as an escort for my command figures… he is also known as Billy No Mates… 😁

The 2nd Eclaireurs did not carry carbines… They carried pistols.

So some scalpel work work was undertaken…

And here they are…

I think that they worked out rather well…If more turn up I will add to the unit.

The Tunic and other green bits are… Foundry… Forest Green 26B.

The Facings are… Citadel… Wazdaka Red.

The Shako is… Citadel… Evil Sunz Scarlet.

I am afraid the rest of the colours are lost in the mists of time.

The paints are Wargames Foundry and Citadel...

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

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

The bases are as always…

https://warbases.co.uk/

I picked this book up the other day…

It piqued my interest…’ Napoleon and Gardens/Gardening’.

I know he gardened in his ‘retirement ‘ on St Helena but not much else…

Curious and curiouser… I will give it a read.

All the best.  Aly

From my side of the table… War of 1866… First game of the year.

Greetings…

At the beginning of the year we gathered at Michael Perry’s house for the first game of the year.

We played a War of 1866 game …

Nick, Dan and myself took the part of the Austrians and Michael, Alan and Dave were the Baddies

We used ‘This Hallowed Ground’ again…With some modifications to try and reflect the different training and doctrine of the two armies…

The game started with a cavalry action/skirmish…

Our glorious brave cavalry.

The clash of arms.

Our glorious brave cavalry running away…Sigh!

Our brave infantry surge forwards.

Some of our glorious brave cavalry returned to the fight.

The infantry to the front of the cavalry represent German Confederation Allies.

A view of the Baddies…all armed with machine guns and bazookas.

We bravely move forward… but we are already starting to take considerable casualties.

Following our excellent combat doctrine we fixed bayonets and rushed upon the Baddies through a hail of machine gun, bazooka and possibly light mortar fire.

Our superbly positioned artillery pours fire upon the Baddies.

Our brave soldiers press on.

Gaps start to appear in our lines.

Our truly glorious cavalry throw themselves at the Baddies line.

Casualties mount up among our brave soldiers.

This brave and skilled battery does it’s best to stem the tide of  
Baddies… but alas it is not enough.

Our men eventually decided that there was a really nice Coffee House in Vienna that 
they all needed to visit .

We… came second… Sigh!

We may have given the baddies too much of an advantage in this fight… All but one of our brigades broke and only a couple of the Baddie battalions were lost…..but it was still fun.

I have had a couple of ideas for some tweaks, so maybe next time we won’t get quite so massacred.

The Baddies and the German Confederation Allies were from Michaels collection.

The glorious Austrians were from Nicks collection.

You can find an alternative (Baddie…Prussian propaganda) account of the battle here…

https://www.facebook.com/perryminiatures

All the best.  Aly

From my side of the table… ACW… Last game of the year.

Greetings….

Between Christmas and New Year Alan and Michael Perry and myself popped over for a game with Dave Andrews in his lovely wargames room…

Dave had set up the table for an American Civil War game …

We used ‘This Hallowed Ground’ which can be downloaded from Jay Whites excellent blog …

http://jayswargamingmadness.blogspot.com/

We had a splendid day’s gaming…Michael and I were the Union and Alan and Dave took the part of the Confederacy….

There were various points on the table that needed to be captured and held… in the end we fought to a rather bloody draw…

Here are some pictures…

The field of battle

The brave boys in blue.

Rebellious rascals 

It’s hard to believe… but these are my dice scores.

Unfortunately the high scoring dice here indicate casualties.

Red dice start to appear amongst the Confederacy.

At the end of the game…The Confederacy has the crossroads and The  Union hold the bridge.

All the figures and terrain are from Dave’s wonderful collection… It’s always very inspiring getting to play with all those lovely toys.

All the best.  Aly