Crimean War… Another rebased unit.

 Greetings…

Here is the latest of my rebased Crimean War units…

This time it is the French Guard Voltigeurs.

Another pleasing unit I think…

The epaulettes and shako pom-poms certainly add a nice bit of colour.

These were painted by the very talented Phil Robinson.

The Miniatures are of course by Great War Miniatures and Standards are from North Star Military Figures…

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

And the bases are as always Warbases…

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

I think it’s going to be slow and steady with these…the next units in line are a couple of battalions of Russian sailors…

All the best    Aly

Crimean War… Rebasing.

 Greetings…

Things are a bit slow on the painting front at the moment…

Mostly because I have been painting some Shiny Napoleonics French Hussars…

There is so much (As my mother used to say) Falldaroy and La-De-Da on these uniforms it takes forever…

So… here are a couple of photos of some of my rebased Crimean War collection…

First up… French Guard Grenadiers…

Next up some Russian Infantry 

A little encouragement goes a long way.

I honestly can’t say that this has been fun… there are a few more finished units… mostly Russian, so they all look pretty much the same…

When I can clear some space on my table I will take some shots of them all together…

The Miniatures are of course by Great War Miniatures and Standards are from North Star Military Figures…

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

And the bases are as always Warbases…

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

So… back to the Hussars…

All the best.  Aly

Shiny American Civil War… The first Union unit…

Greetings…

So as the title says here is the first of my Union units for this project…

I have painted them as a standard Regular Infantry Regiment..

I have after some consideration decided not to use any of the figures Dave Andrews gave me for this project…I will however hang on to them as one never knows how the wind may change…

I am going to use Jacklex Miniatures as much as I can… Their relatively simple design and full on retro feel is something that I really like…

As to the composition of the armies I am using the Action In The Plattville Valley scenario from Donald Featherstone’s War Games as a guide…

Six infantry,two cavalry and one cannon a side… it’s a good start and allows me to have a reasonable collection to build on and game with…

Of course these numbers are as always a guide and not a rule…

So… here it is…

I am indeed very pleased with these…

One off the things that took some time was my indecision about what to do about flags… In the end I went for the old Flags for the Lads range that I picked up many years ago and over painted the somewhat ‘pixilated’ images …

I know… Why take the easy option?…

The Tunics are… Citadel… Kantor Blue plus some Caledor  Sky.

The Trousers are… Citadel… Hoeth Blue.

The Snap Sacks are… Foundry… Charcoal Black Light 34C.

The Guns are… Citadel… Mournfang Brown.

The Water Bottles are… Citadel… Russ Grey.

The White bits are… Citadel Pallid Wych Flesh.

The Blanket Rolls are… Citadel Administratum Grey.

The Leather Good and Backpack are Black.

As always everything was given a coat of Aly’s Brown Liquid and highlighted with the original colours.

The figures are from Jacklex…

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

The bases are as always from Warbases…

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

This feels like a nice start to this project and I look forward to adding more as time goes by…

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

Shiny Napoleonics… The French 18th Infantry Regiment

 Greetings all…

This unit is now finished…

It took a little bit longer to finish than I thought it would…

Removing the extra greatcoats took up a lot of the time and the real world the rest…

Anyway here they are…

I really like how these chaps have turned out…Greatcoats often come over as rather dull things but by going a little lighter that I was initially thinking it has made them stand out and look colourful…

The Greatcoat is… Citadel… Administratum Grey.

The Trousers are… Citadel… Pallid Wych Flesh.

The Bayonet Scabbard is… Citadel… Skrag Brown.

The Water bottle is… Foundry… Buff Leather 7B.

Green bits are… Citadel… Warboss Green.

Yellow bits are… Citadel… Averland Sunset.

Red bits are… Citadel… Evil Sunz Scarlet.

As  usual everything was give a wash of Aly’s Brown Liquid and then highlighted withe the original shade.

The bases are as always...
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

The Flag is GMB Designs...
https://gmbdesigns.com/product-category/28mm-range/28mm-range-napoleonic-wars/

So it’s back to re-basing and re-flagging my Crimean War collection… considering how few units I have finished so far… you won’t be seeing a parade for a while… there are however some nice new additions on their way 😁

All the best.   Aly

Four years old….

 Greetings…

Gosh… another year…

Wow!… Where did last year go?…

Wow!… It’s been like Groundhog Day every day…

Two conflicting feelings of how yet another year has passed…

It has indeed been eventful… for the good and also sadly for the bad…

So… Hobby wise.

Lots of toys painted…

I have started a couple of new things…well of course I have… and hopefully I will be posting evidence of this soon.

The older collections continue to be added to…

My Shiny Napoleonic project continues to give me a lot of joy…And a slight amount of horror when I realised just how many Minifigs S Range castings I have acquired… It is however a dirty job and someone has to do it..😁

Having played a couple of solo games with my 3rd Century Romans and Sassanids I am also enthused enough to paint more toys… Camel Cataphracts… Oh yes…

In the background I have been steadily re-basing my Crimean War collection… l will hopefully be able to show something of that the near future .

Sculpting… Hmmm!… I’ve been playing about with bits and pieces… Trying to get my Mojo back… but while my hobby space is dominated by my works computer it is hard to switch my sculpting brain out of the virtual/digital world…

I suppose as I start to reach retirement age… in the next couple of years😲… I should be able to spend more time creating historical toy soldiers.

On a personal level…

Two jabs and I am feeling a bit more confident about returning to the big bad world… Of course my country is run by buffoons, so I continue to be cautious…

The ACW campaign I am part of is starting to kick off again… let’s hope that General Luckless doesn’t live up to his name…

Mharaid and I have had some jolly good games… However I still seem to come second 😕.

Games in general have halted as I sort out the wargames room in anticipation of work on my house towards the end of the year… when I say sort out… think archeological dig.

The major downside of this year was of course the very sad news of the passing of my old chum Duncan Macfarlane… A true giant in our hobby and a sad loss to our world.

To end on a positive note… Which I feel one should always try and do…

Having this Blog and getting the support from my followers has been an uplifting and enjoyable experience… I have and continue to connect with like minded individuals…many of whom  I now consider friends…

So I thank you all for your support and encouragement…

All the best   Aly.

Lion Rampant… Nellie!

 Greetings…

So here we have ‘Nellie’…. My Sassanid Elephant…

I know I shouldn’t but…

https://youtu.be/9m7tPikH0UA

It’s always worth a listen….😁

In all her glory…

An A&A Elephant with some additional crew and a couple of heads from Aventine…

Nellie… Mostly… Citadel… Storm Vermin Fur.

Crew Tunics… Citadel… Pallid Wytch Flesh.

Howdah… Foundry… Moss 29B.

Red Bits… Citadel… Mephiston Red.

Officers Tunic and Crew Tunic Piping… Citadel… Lothern Blue.

Spears… Foundry… Spearshaft Light 13C.

Leather Goods… Citadel… Doombull and Skrag Brown.

The miniatures are...
Aventine... https://aventineminiatures.co.uk/

http://www.aandaminiatures.co.uk/

The bases are...

Warbases... https://warbases.co.uk/

The Shield Transfers and Banners are from...
Little Big Men Studios... https://www.littlebigmenstudios.com/

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

This was both fun and strenuous to paint… A lead elephant is heavy… 

Well I suppose it would be…🙄😂

All the best    Aly.