New Year Catch Up and plans for 2026

Greetings…

Well it’s taken longer than I thought to get this post written up…

I think it’s just been one of these years…

For me it started of with Flu… And a hospital visit.😳🙄

I’ve also had two Cataract operations… Which I must say has made a massive improvement to my life.

I have now got some decent prescription reading glasses for my close up work , but on a day to day basis I don’t need really need any glasses at all… ( I do however carry a pair of shop bought £3.99 readers in my pocket… just in case😁)

The house has been ( and still is) a bit of a building site… but the Cellar is now finished as is the work on my Wargames Room…

The only thing to do is get all my books and toys back on their shelves… This has been a slow process as I have had a rather bad Fibromyalgia flare up which has made moving me and objects rather painful.

Bit by bit I am getting there…

Most of these boxes are now empty and all my toy soldiers are where they should be…

Painting as a result of all this has been at a minimum… but I have assembled quite a few figures in preparation for my retirement…

Yup!

Retirement! Hurrah!… The plan is April.

So! 

What are my hobby plans for the future?

I have planned out/ prepared/ front loaded for 6 - 8 projects/Collections.

In “All Plastic “…

Khazar Wars… Two forces for Lion Rampant…Khazars v’s Rus… Victrix Miniatures….8-10 units a side, all assembled while I was waiting for my eyes to heal…

The first thing I painted after the operations was a test unit for the Rus.

The Hundred Days…

Two moderate sized forces…All plastic… Made up of units that I think are pretty, based up in a way that will hopefully allow me to use a number of different rules systems.

I have already treated myself to a painted unit by my chum Mark Hargreaves at Over Open Sights.

http://over-open-sights.blogspot.com/2025/09/vive-l-empereur.htmlOver Open Sights: Vive L' Empereur!

In “ Metal “…

Pyrrhic Wars…

This is probably one of the bigger planned projects…

Four factions… Each 8 - 10 units strong…

Pyrrhic, Hellenistic Greek, Republican Roman and Carthaginian…

I have all the castings I need ( well probably more than I need 🤔)

Vandal Wars…

Vandals v’s Byzantines… Two forces for Lion Rampant 8 - 10 units a side with options for expansion.

I also have all the castings I need…Maybe 😆

Of course let’s not forget the Late Romans that I have just acquired from my friend David Bickley…

I have some rebasing to do… But I do have all I need…. Yeah!… Maybe 🤔🤣

Tintin…

A small project using Mark Copplestone’s beautiful “Marks Little Soldiers “

https://www.copplestonecastings.co.uk/list.php?cat=23&page=1Mark's Little Soldiers - Copplestone Castings

Not sure where this will go… But I’m thinking Rebels and Patriots or Men Who Would be Kings…

Syldavia v’s Borduria… What’s not to like.

Oh!…

And there is The Lord of the Rings…

A bit of an outrider here…

I’ve been collecting various bits and pieces… Thinking “Dragon Rampant “… 

We will see where this goes as I always found it difficult painting Fantasy/Sci-Fi as it reminds me too much of Work… But as I won’t be working things might be different.

Also…

The Youngsters are planning something WW2… Set around operation Knights Move… I’m thinking a little force of Paratroopers… Maybe a Stug or two 😁

There also maybe a visit to “Pillage” later… I’m thinking Normans.

This is all on top of adding a few new units to my existing collections…

Well…

That’s the plan… Sort of…

I certainly won’t be bored…

But we all know what happens to plans….

All the best   Aly.

Late Roman… More rebasing.

Greetings…

Here are two more rebased Late Roman units…

First up…

Roman Archers…

Spruced up with a couple of glazes and hand painted shields.

And the next one…

These could be used for Roman Cataphracts or Goth Elite Cavalry.

The officer was brightened up a bit, the shields were repainted and new plastic spears were added.

Once again nothing too drastic done to them and I am very pleased with the results…So far this has been a fairly painless experience.

The bases are from Warbases…

https://warbases.co.uk/

The plastic spears are from Fireforge Games…

https://fireforge-games.com/weapons/274-spears-5cm-24pcs.html

All the best   Aly

Late Romans… Rebasing… Huns.

Greetings…

Yup! Another post and it is still July 😁.

Here is one more rebased unit for this project…

Hun Light Cavalry… Depending on what rules I use these could be one normal sized unit or two small ones…

These fellows took a bit more sprucing than the previous units , mainly because I decided to brighten up the tunic colours a bit and hand paint the shields.

There is another unit like this one waiting to be worked on and I might pick up some castings to do a few more…I think Huns work better in Hordes.

All the best.  Aly

Late Romans… More rebasing.

Greetings …

Here are another couple of units from the Great Rebasing project….

Some archers… I will probably treat these as two small units if I use Hail Caesar…

I will most likely use these as Limitanie Medium Infantry…

I have a few more of these to come…And I am waiting for some Little Big Men Studios shield transfers to add to some others…

I think this is going to be a very attractive collection when there is enough to have a game with… I was going to type ‘finished ‘…. But my fingers wouldn’t let me 😁.

All the best.  Aly

Late Romans… Rebasing.

Greetings…

Last year my friend and fellow blogger David Bickley let it be know that he wished to reduce the size of his Late Roman collection…

I quite naturally jumped at the chance to help him… Thats what friends are for 😁.

A deal was done and an exchange agreed upon…  10:15… Warhammer World car park… Try and look natural etc…

Once David had made a clean getaway I checked out my loot…

A lovely collection of Wargames Foundry Late Romans…

Once I got home I examined my purchases… Given the amount of action these chaps have had they were/are in very good condition.

After some consideration I decided to give them a little bit of sprucing up…

The main thing I wanted to do was rebase them… This was initially because over time some of bases had started to warp slightly but also I felt it would … For want of a better term… Put my stamp on them (I know artistic egos get everywhere 🤣)

I decided to use a couple of 2mm bases laminated together to hopefully stop any future distortion.

While the figures were awaiting their new homes I also gave them new plastic spears (The rather useful ones from Fireforge Games), new standards , removed and spruced up the shields and brightened up any paint that was starting to look a bit worn…

The shields were either repainted , tidied up or given new transfers… 

The standards were simply replaced with fresh versions of what was originally there but on plastic poles.

My method for brightening up the paint was to match up the colours the best I could and simply give the area in question a thin glaze of  50% colour and 50% Citadel Lahmian Medium.

None of this titivating took very long… The thing I didn’t want to do was to start fully repainting anything.

The final thing I decided to do was to place the figures more or less in the positions that they originally were.

Here are a couple of finished units…

These fellows with most likely be used as Goths… 

These chaps will be used as Roman Medium Cavalry or possibly Romano-British… 

More to come…

The bases are from Warbases…

https://warbases.co.uk/

The plastic spears are from Fireforge Games…

https://fireforge-games.com/weapons/274-spears-5cm-24pcs.html

All the best   Aly

New Toys… Another building.

 Greetings…

This is the final ‘Airfix’ building from my order…

The Village Church…

https://www.dapol.co.uk/shop/model-accessories/self-assembly-oo-kits?page=2

A classic Norman church by the look of it and almost certainly based on a British building… so it should fit into the world of shiny old school rather well…

A good chum suggested that the windows on my cottage may be stuck on the wrong side of the walls…

Checking the instructions… 

All looks well… I have built it as… well… instructed.

BUT!…

Looking at the pictures of the model as shown on said instructions… it would seem that the windows should be attached from the inside of the walls… 

Bugger!…

It does look a lot better… a bit less like a dolls house.

I have checked on the internet and all the instructions that I can find are the same… but lots of pictures of the building show it with the windows attached from the inside…

Could the instructions be wrong… well yes… it does happen from time to time… the person who draws up the instructions isn’t necessarily the person who made the kit… sometimes wires… and windows… get crossed…

It also looks a lot better with the windows attached from the inside…

So another cottage has been ordered…

Fear not… the existing building will be repurposed as a gingerbread house of death or something similar for a future Xmas game…

Okay back to the War of 1812…

All the best.  Aly

New Toys… Classic ‘Airfix’ buildings.

Greetings…

Okay… not original Airfix buildings… but the currently available Dapol Kitmaster buildings.

https://www.dapol.co.uk/shop/model-accessories/self-assembly-oo-kits?page=2

I picked up a brace of cottages and a windmill…

They are nice little kits… very simple and very much of the time they were first made…

The only update/redesign that I noticed was the addition of numbers on the pieces, something I don’t remember from when I first built some as a young lad.

The moulds do look like they are starting to get a bit worn and there was some flash on a few bits… although having said that I have seen worse on more modern kits that I have had in the past…

And of course being the big kid/butterfly I am I had to get one built… now!

It’s turned out rather well…

The only additional thing I have done is fix a piece of cardboard to the bottom so I have a surface I can stick to a handle of some sort to hold it while a put the paint on…

I’m not sure when the painting will happen… but it will be sooner rather than later…

All the best   Aly

New Toys… Some MDF buildings.

Greetings…

Some future urban development for my Shiny Napoleonics…

I ordered a few more 15mm buildings from Sarissa … I shall not be building them immediately ,but it’s nice to have them on hand for when the mood takes me…

https://sarissa-precision.com/collections/world-war-europe-15mm

Apart from a few more walls ,this lot should be enough for my needs… at the moment.

I have some Canadian Voltigeurs on the painting desk at the moment… hopefully they shouldn’t take too long to finish…

All the best   Aly

A new project… The War of 1812.

Yes… The War of 1812…

Greetings…

“ How did this come about ?“ I hear you ask..

Well…

The war came about mostly because of American anger at the Royal Navy stopping and seizing ships on the open sea and impressing as British subjects captured crew, even if they personally had proof of their U.S. citizenship… combined with a long standing desire by War Hawks in the American House and Senate to try and conquer the whole of… 

Oh!…

Of course what you meant is how did it come about that I have started a War of 1812 project…

Well…

I let my butterfly flutter free for a while…

First it settled on something small…6mm Napoleonics… It seemed like a good idea…you know the kind of thing… big battles in a small space…

But… It was… well… just a bit too small…

Next it landed on something just a little bit bigger…

10mm Seven Weeks War (1866)…

Nice uniforms and an interesting period…

But… yup… still a bit on the small side…

Ooo!…

54mm Britains style toy soldiers in a ‘what if’ 1890’s Anglo-American war…

Now I do like the idea of this…it ticks all of my boxes… but I’m not that sure about building large scale terrain at the moment…

Maybe when I’ve sorted my cellar out and have more room…

This was a bit of a surprise… The 30 years War…

I find this period really interesting… both militarily and politically….

The figures are lovely…

But… I find it really hard to get into pike and shot wargaming… I’m not sure why… maybe I have a phobia about long pointy sticks ( I’m not that keen on Macedonian armies either).

It’s an odd thing really as I always enjoy reading about other peoples adventures in this period…but when I start painting any myself it just leaves me a bit cold… I will try again another time.

Normans and Byzantines in Italy…

I think this will get done it’s a fascinating period full of really interesting characters… what stalled me here was not finding a set of rules that suited my needs… of course there is now a Lion Rampant supplement on the market… so yes… but not right now.

Definitely a yes…

But after The War of 1812.

The least said about this the better…

For those of you who want to know… it’s a push fit limited edition SF 3D Battle Suit… I have two of them.

Move along nothing more to see here… possibly. 😜

Shiny Seven Years War… using Minifigs.

This came close… I even worked out what I might need…

But…  I’ve already got a couple of ‘shiny’ projects on the go.. I think I will get these completed first… at least to point of having a game before I start another.

And now… 

The War of 1812…

It’s pretty obvious really…😁

It of course helps that I have a reasonable collection of books on the subject…

And…It’s one of my favourite periods…

My plan is to put together a couple of forces for Rebels and Patriots…

I think these rules will work well for a lot of the small scale actions that happened during this war…

Next up… 

The first unit…

All the best.  Aly

Crimean War… New toys.

 Greetings…

I decided to treat myself and have some toys painted for me…

As I have been steadily reorganising and rebasing my Crimean War collection I thought I would get young Mark Hargreaves at Over Open Sights to paint the Heavy Brigade.

He agreed with me that this would be a jolly jape…

The Heavy Brigade and the Light Brigade are both a bit problematic when it comes to fitting them to my basing principles for this projects….

I have been using my now fairly usual system of 1 stand for a tiny unit,2 stands for a small,3 for a medium and 4 for a large… 

Even though there really isn’t quite enough men to justify it, I have decided to make the Heavies a four stand unit… It’s more about what looks good rather than what is totally accurate… I will probably do the same for the Lights.

The problem is trying to fit five different regiments into a twelve man unit…It doesn’t divide well.

Fortunately most of the brigade look very similar so we went for…

The Scots Greys… for the command.

The Inniskilling’s… nice yellow facings.

The 1st Dragoons… blue facings.

And the 5th Dragoon Guards… dark green facings.

Here they are in all their glory…

I must say I am extremely pleased with these… Mark has done a splendid job with them…

There are some additional photos on the Open Over Sights Blog…

http://over-open-sights.blogspot.com/

There are some details of their famous charge here…

https://victorianweb.org/history/crimea/paget/heavy.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Balaclava

https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/battle-balaklava

The miniatures are by Great War Miniatures…

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

The bases are from War Bases…

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

All the best   Aly

Butterfly Moments... Shiny American Civil War.

Greetings...

Okay I am calling it a butterfly moment for now... but I think this one has potential.

One of the reasons that it has potential is the fact that David Andrews has given me a big bag of 20mm figures... so it would be rude not to try.

A while back I ordered some samples from Jacklex Miniatures...

http://www.jacklexminiatures.com/american-civil-war

I have to say that Mark Lodge the current owner is a fine fellow to deal with.

I have always liked Jacklex Miniatures, they have a character all of their own... 

I was however taken by surprise by the genuine old school packaging...

Definitely old school...

I seem to remember Minifigs being packed in the same way many many years ago...

It was quite fun digging the toys out...although I am not sure how I would cope with a really large order.

Jesting aside this certainly reduces the amount of plastic packaging and it is recyclable.

So I painted a few up....

I have to say I am very pleased with them... they certainly tick all the shiny boxes.

I will be taking this one slowly for the moment... It’s not like I don’t have anything else to do...

The next shiny Americans will come out of the box of toys David gave me...

All the best    Aly