I’ve been fairly busy this week, with another holiday next week. Mainly though gradually improving my health. However, the painting is progressing fairly well. First up I have finally painted my first unit of Japanese Samurai/Ashigaru, these are all Perry figures and were quicker than I expected to paint  Steve gifted me a few extra 15mm bits recently and I have painted these up for North Africa Some extra Sherman’s Panzerjager and anti aircraft gun or simple paint schemes Finally and perhaps my favourite this week a unit of French Carabiniers, Perry plastics painted in their slightl ..read more

This weeks painting update ? First up a unit of Portuguese light infantry, Cacadores can’t really do the Peninsular without these, seems hard to find a consistent uniform as they are shown in many different variations, in fact every publication seems to show them slightly differently ? Anyway this seems pretty standard approach, they are Perry figures with the base on their left being Atiradores armed with rifles. I think I also have another small unit to complete in the future. Another addition to the Sicilian collection a second Sherman, a Warlord Resin kit picked up off eBay  Finall ..read more

Hot on the heals of the Imperial Guard are some American Paratroopers. One of my plans for this year was to expand my Sicily / Italy WW2 collection so to supplement the existing Americans I picked up some second hand warlord plastic Paratroopers. I had few spare bits as well and managed for a very modest cost to make them into three 10 man squads.  Each one has a BAR, a sub machine gun and a squad leader with a carbine. Took a while to find the right colour scheme as I wanted them to be different to the other US troops I have. The Stars and Stripes flags are actually cut down from some ..read more

Just spotted I was in danger of not posting anything for a whole month ! So what has happened to May ? First a splendid week and a bit in sunny Naples, so much history not even sure where to start, don’t worry I’m not going to download all my holiday day by day. Then a busy week and a bit shifting furniture from one end of the country to the other settling my son into his new house in London and a flying visit to Partizan. And then I have been struck down again with a nasty chest infection, my health has definitely been under par for a while now but the Doctor doesn’t seem to have found a caus ..read more

For this weeks battle we move back into the ‘Dark Ages’ mainly as I had an itch to get my Welsh on the table after our recent castle trip. Unfortunately I don’t have a suitable 13th Century British force so we went a little further back in history to the Battle of Brunanbugh. Although you can find a lot written about the battle little is actually known as it is referenced fairly briefly in a number of the Anglo Saxon chronicles and mainly in a Poem, the debate rages as to the location of the battle although Bromborough on the Wirral has been making a claim most vocally. It is also the end batt ..read more

Painting mainly from last week with a bit completed this morning. First up some dismounted French Dragoons….these are entirely Aly Morrison’s fault, I had primed them a while ago but they sat on the todo list for ages. Then Aly painted up his ‘shiny’ version, so impressed was I that they rushed to the top of the painting queue. Perry figures which you get with their Dragoon sets. I have created a little bit of variation and added in a command figure, trumpeter and standard, I thought about basing them individually but in the end plumbed for multibasing. They make a nice little light infantry ..read more

Several things to catch up on this week ? Firstly following the recent V&F French Russian battles it seemed time to get my British onto the table with a Peninsular battle. Surprisingly I seem to have painted almost as many British as I have french ? So they are fairly well balanced. Steve would take control of the British as this was his first run out with V&F and he could defend, the French would be tasked with assaulting. The French are assaulting from the two long edges, the British holding the higher ground which is cut by a ravine in the centre. Forces are roughly equal with fiv ..read more

For our weekend game we wanted a full day battle and I was keen to get the recently completed Mediterranean terrain on the table. Although not historically based the battle sees the Americans seek to force their way inland, Capturing small Sicilian villages located on difficult to access mountain tops the terrain is difficult and the Germans dug in. Then Americans will enter from the left (south) the air support is controlled by a special die being pulled from the bag. The Germans are already occupying the three main villages and the church on the craggy hill. All the rest of the German force ..read more

After the Napoleonic battle last week I quickly packed up for a game the following day. Loosely based on a recent scenario in WSS I setup a Dark age encounter. The Normans have pushed their control across most of the British isles building fortified buildings and castles as they go. In 1069 they are on the welsh border their occupation as much about intimidation as the collection of tax. The local Norman Lord has been on a 2 day march to collect Taxes from the local population. But the Welsh are not happy and a raiding party has been sent to take back the extorted money. Using Lion Rampant bot ..read more

After a brief hiatus we managed to get the Napoleonics back on the table this week pitching Martin’s Russians against my French for a second battle. The Russian commander had been busily painting fresh troops and Uhlan lancers, whilst the French had slightly more heavy cavalry, which meant I left out the Hussars from the previous encounter (did anybody notice they were actually British ?) anyway this means the Russians now outnumber the French so our scenario (not historical) made the Russians the attackers. We would be using V&F again but unfortunately we had both forgotten most of it so ..read more