Lion Rampant… Wars of the Roses.

Greetings…

Yup!…

The butterfly has landed.

After the youngsters ( sorry guys … you will always be the youngsters 😁) at work had had a couple of enjoyable games using Lion Rampant they were eager to try something new and exciting for themselves.

After throwing a few ideas into the hat.. We decided that the Wars of the Roses ticked all the right boxes.

I dug out some inspirational material…

I picked up some standards from Petes flags on eBay…

https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/petes_flags

We chose sides…

Based on careful research …. “Oooo! That’s pretty.” 🤣

So far we have…

John Bochier.

Somerset.

Jasper Tudor.

Hastings.

Fouconberg.

And De La Pole… Me.

There will also be some dodgy Continental mercenaries.

Side changing will definitely happen.😈

After a quick bit of research we found out that most of our “characters” met their end in unfortunate and possibly entertaining circumstances… Hurrah!

The plan is to throw whatever we have on the table in the new year and see who survives…

There will probably be a test run out before then though.

Next time… Some painted toys.

All the best.  Aly

Yet more family history… Colour Sergeant Thomas Wardrope 1865-1938.

Greetings…

Since my last post I have managed to get hold of a scan of my Great Grandfather’s obituary…

I have edited the contrast on it to make it a bit more readable…

The comment about him regretting not being able to serve during WW1 always makes me smile… According to my Mother … He was livid! 

Colour Sergeant Thomas Wardrope…

Thomas’s Obituary…

All the best.  Aly

More family history…

Greetings…

This piece of history considers family members of my Great Aunt (My Grandmothers sister)…

My Great Uncle by marriage Alexander MacLennan.

The son of a soldier he joined The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in the 1890’s, with whom he served in India and the North West Frontier.

He then re-enlisted serving again in India and South Africa.

My Great Grandfather was also serving in the Argylls at this time… So maybe this is when the connection to my Great Aunt came about.

At the outbreak of WW1 he re-enlisted in the Argylls once more seeing service in France.

He had reached the rank of Company Sergeant Major and had a DCM by the time he lost his life during the battle of Amiens in 1918.

As far as I can work out his battalion would have been part of 32nd Division and fought as part of Curries Canadian Corps.

There is a lot more research to do into this, it would be interesting to find out more about his and my Great Grandfathers earlier foreign service.

I had pretty much decided to put this to bed for a while when I came across this through a search on the Imperial War Museum website…

It’s not very clear in the photo… The top of the grave has an inscription to Alexander MacLennan’s parents but towards the base there are these additional inscriptions…

It shows that Alexander’s brother was… by his rank… also a professional soldier but in the Cameron Highlanders…

It appears he lost his life during the fighting around Le Cateau in 1914.

I do not hold to the ill informed Lions lead by Donkeys, Horrors of the Trenches narrative of the war that is often bandied about…

But finding out that the deaths of two members of my extended family bookend WW1 goes to show how much of an affect any war can have on one family.

All the best.  Aly

Crimean War… Even more rebasing.

Greetings…

I have been slowly rebasing this collection for a while…

See my earlier stuff here…

https://alystoysoldiers.blogspot.com/search/label/Crimean%20War

I decided while I was on a high after the rather positive Great Late Roman Rebasing project to get some more work done on my Crimean War collection… I shall keep chipping away at this in the background until it gets too painful or just boring 😁.

This time we have a couple of Russian Naval Battalions… 

These originally started as a single unit of Armed Sailors but I decided to add more figures to represent additional Marksmen/Marines and bring them up to two Battalions.

I am very pleased how the mix of different uniform styles and colours has come out.

The Standards are from North Star…

https://www.northstarfigures.com/list.php?man=20&cat=175&sub=231&page=1

And the bases are as always Warbases…

https://warbases.co.uk/product-category/bases/premier-bases-metric/

All the best  Aly.

3rd Century Rome… Roman armoured camel riders.

Greetings…

Although the lurgy is still with me I am slowly starting to feel the painting mojo flowing through my aching bones…

I have managed at long last to finish this unit for my 3rd Century Romans…

Those of you with long memories will be aware that I actually dug these out of the Lead Alp to paint in April 😱.

I have been slowly picking away at them and here they are…

I must admit that I did find them a bit of a task…But they have turned out rather well.

The Camel is… Foundry… Canvas Shade 8A.

The Camel ‘Fur’ is… Foundry… Drab 12A.

The various ‘Leathers’ are… Citadel… Doombull Brown… Skrag Brown… Tuskor Fur and…Death Claw Brown.

The Red Bits are… Citadel… Evil Sunz Scarlet.

The White Bits are… Citadel… Pallid Wych Flesh.

The Cloaks are… Foundry… Royal Purple Shade 19A.

The Shields are… Citadel… Teclis Blue… With AK11118… Ochre Rims.

Everything was given a wash with Aly’s Brown Liquid and highlighting with the original shades... the white was given an extra highlight with added pure white...

The miniatures are...

A&A...  https://www.aandaminiatures.co.uk/

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

I am glad that I have now got these chaps finished…It’s going to be interesting to see how they do up against Nellie.

All the best.  Aly