Finally......

 Yesterday I finally finished the rebasing, gloss varnishing of the 25mm ECW project, it was a long haul, took a bit longer than I thought it would but I finally finished it.  The whole lot will give me about 10 infantry regiments per side pretty much the same in cavalry plus dragoons and artillery and command figures, all done and boxed in plastic boxes ready for their debut.  Haven't a clue when I will set up a game for them as I am still undecided on a rule set plus time is a premium at the moment.  Anyway just glad to have them done so I can move on with something else as everything has been piling up behind this project.

On the table are a half completed Swedish regiment for the GNW and I think I will try and get them done before I tackle anything else, when done they will give me four foot regiments and one gun and crew, hoping to add another regiment of foot, another gun and crew plus ammo cart also some command figures and finally get some cavalry organised, I was thinking three squadrons of them, all this should give me a decent army and then it will be on to the opponents!  All figures for this project will be Warfare miniatures from the League of Augsburg, lovely figures and look great painted up.

This week will see limited hobby time due to work and a trip to Glasgow on Saturday for a record fair, but I hope to get some free time on Sunday to indulge myself a little, fingers crossed!!  Hopefully I can get some of the Swedish troops photographed and uploaded onto my blog in the near future, we shall see!

Anyway that's it for now, feeling pretty happy with myself about the ECW project so I will sign off on that rather smug note!!

Nothing to see here.......

 It has been very slow on the hobby front, not too much being done but I thought that I would put up a blog anyway as there has been some progress!!

The "old school" ECW project is just about there, I will be happy when it's done as it has taken precedence to the detriment of other projects.  Anyway the figures are just about all based up, some dragoons to do and a couple of foot regiments and that should be that, all done and dusted this weekend or possibly next.

Real life and work has taken over most of my free time so any I have had has been used to get the ECW one done but it's not all been bad, I have bought a couple of things for future projects, the main one being a Crimean War one, I have the castings for two divisions for the British army, 3 line infantry battalions and 3 for the Guards, two of these are ready painted bought from Colonel Bills, they were on sale and too good to miss, this is a future project so is on the back burner but if I have enough castings ready I can batter on when the time comes. Not too sure how big this project will go, we shall see.

Another project for the future is an Anglo Dutch naval one, I have never done naval wargaming before but always had a hankering to try it out and it seems a few folk out there are embarking on naval games. I know that my dabbing skills would not allow for bigger scale ships, and the thought of rigging would give me nightmares! So with that in mind I went for Tumbling Dice 1/4800 range of ships, lovely little models and should paint up well enough even with my limited skill set, the whole thing should play out on a 6"x4" board as well which was another win for me, hopefully this will start next year, rule sets are what I am concentrating on now, bought the PDF of Rolling Thunder from the League of Augsburg website and may go with them, we shall see!

The last purchase was a fun one and who knows where this will take me!!

Cracking little Seven Years War style Dog Hussars, lovely little castings and something for a bit of fun, there is infantry and artillery as well, so who knows!

Anyway that's it for now, so until next time.....

An interesting problem.....

 Perusing ebay for figures is always interesting when I have a bit of down time and I came across some figures that interested me.  I am always on the look out for older SYW figures that I can use for my Imagi-nations project, I have Hinchliffe, Minifig and Garrison sitting in boxes waiting for me to do something with them, probably a retirement project to be honest.  Anyway I found these ones when looking at Hinds shop on ebay, I messaged Ian to ask if he knew anything about them and he came back that he thought they may be either Garrison or Greenwood and Ball, I have a load of Garrison and the poses don't look like them and after a fruitless search online I could find very little on G & B, here are a couple of pictures just in case someone out there knows what they might be.

They are certainly old school with very little definition a bit like Spencer Smiths in that department, you have to paint on straps etc. as the detail isn't there, they look pretty decent though and with a bit of care and attention and a new paint job and gloss varnish they should look pretty decent on the table.  I am waiting for them to arrive, knowing Ian it shouldn't take too long as he has a very quick turnaround, then I can see them in the flesh so to speak and work out a plan for them.  So basically if anyone knows anything about these figures I would be very interested indeed, if they remain a mystery then so be it as they should fit in well enough with all my other old school figures.  So until next time.....

The buying frenzy continues....

 Well the work continues on the ECW project although nothing done this weekend, busy with other things.  I did purchase another Summerfield tome, this one on Austrian infantry, and it is another cracking book, nothing more from him on the horizon but who knows!

While perusing ebay I cam across some painted Crann Tara figures for sale, I recognised them and then realised they were from the late Stuart Insch and were being sold by his good friend Graham, there was a Neapolitan army and a Spanish one from the siege of Havana. The Neapolitans were a must buy as we had chatted about them some time ago, Stuart had provided me with a lot of uniform information for Genoa, Piedmont and Naples for a project I was working on, no brainer there, then seeing the Spanish I just had to have them as well, so paid for them too.

This is the Neapolitan collection painted by Stuart Foley I believe, they are quite superb and will do me very nicely indeed.

And this is the Spanish troops, and again I think Stuart Foley painted some of them but Stuart Inch did some of them too. Really happy to have purchased these for my collection as they are really top notch and great additions to my collection and very nice to have something from Suarts collection, they will fight another day.

More purchases to come from the collection of Tony Joseph on the horizon as well, he has more Hanoverians plus some British and some French, so it's in for a penny and in for a pound!  So plenty added to my collection and nothing at all painted but I do have some plans in the pipeline for some work I will do myself, we will see when that will come to fruition!  So until next time,,,,,,

Busy but no painting!!!

 Well as the title says, I have been busy when real life doesn't intrude with hobby time!  The varnish and rebasing continues on the "old school" ECW project and I am over half way through and will get a few more bits and pieces done this weekend, I managed to get some units done every day this week due to being on holiday although the decoration of the kitchen has taken precedence! I have enjoyed this project and it is well ahead of schedule and will be finished well before the year end.

My purchases of Stephen Summerfield books continues and I have added the Prussian Frei Infantry one, which is a good one, and then I got this beauty,

If you have any interest in the Hanoverian army of the SYW then this book is a must, not the cheapest but well worth the money, it's a seriously good book. This leads me on nicely to what else I have been up to.

I have purchased several units of infantry, horse and dragoons from Tony Joseph, who is an expat living in Spain, he is downsizing his collection and selling up all his Minden figures and going down the 15/18mm route, this has allowed me to buy 8 infantry, 4 horse and 2 dragoon units from him, all lovely painted and based and ready to do battle.

This gives you an idea of the standard of the units I have purchased, really happy with them and they will go well with the units I already have finished, gives me a decent Hanoverian army and added to the British I have finished or on the go should look great on the table. I have a fair Saxon army finished and more still to do, I am adding some French to them and at the end will have two well matched armies for some Western actions of the SYW.

Well the holidays have come to an end and I have to be in today for the morning, ease me back gently and will get my desk ready for Monday morning, bit more varnishing on the cards for tomorrow, so until the next time.......

Late August...

 Well hobby time has been at a premium this month, work and gardening have taken priority but still some things have been progressing.  My ECW "old school" project has been sorted out into their units and the glossy varnish is being applied, not really done glossy before but on those old Minifigs and Hinchliffe it really works well, the first two Parliamentarian and the first two Royalist cavalry have been glossed and based in the way I want them to be.  I was half planning rebasing them but they look fine in the way they have been originally done, so I am going with that, all I am doing in adding them to bigger bases and labelling them up, not a specific regiments but as Royalist horse, Royalist foot etc. This is a fairly large project so the varnishing and basing is probably going to take up most of my time for the next foreseeable future. The good part of this is that by the end of the year I will have two armies ready for the table, which is a win in my book!

On other hobby things I purchased this book of ebay

It was at a good price so really a no brainer and looking forward to reading it, should be a good addition to the library.

That's about it in this update, next post will have some nice pictures of some lovely units I have bought from a fellow wargamer, more to follow.....

 

Update for July

 Well that's July gone and it finished with very little hobby time, the last
week or so has seen next to no painting done as work and real life took over, my cousin passed away a week or so ago and it was a hard one to take as we were pretty close and he was only a year older than me so thoughts of mortality kicked in, we had loads of good times so many happy memories. 

 The weekend just past our cat, a companion for 18 years passed over, she has been poorly for the last week and collapsed on Saturday so it was off to the vets and she reckoned her kidneys had failed so it was goodbye to wee Kitty, we both miss her as does the dog but hey ho life goes on.

Anyway back to hobby time, next to nothing done but then at the back end of the month a big move on that front!  First I have had a resurgence in my love affair with the 18th century and bought 5 titles from the Helion collection of SYW and WAS, plenty of reading material and plenty of inspiration that's for sure. Then when perusing the Lead Adventure Forum I saw this post on the "For Sale" section....

This was for a collection of 25mm Minifigs and Hinchliffe ECW figures, around  400 infantry, over 100 cavalry and ten guns and crew plus command figures, contacted the seller, Mark Hides, well known wargamer and professional painter and author of a cracking blog, got the deal done and on Monday a box that nearly gave me hernia arrived at my house! All that is required is a bit of touch up on some figures a bit of basing work and a coat of gloss varnish and this whole lot is ready for the table, absolutely chuffed to bits with this as I had fancied doing and old school collection for the ECW but it would have taken me years to get a collection of this size together and on the table now it is a matter of days/weeks and they will be on the table.

With the figures being old style 25mm I am going to go down the 15mm buildings/scenery route as I think it will work better than new style 28mm scenery. A church some farm building and a few houses will suffice, I will buy these ready painted to save time on this front, also I am going to get a couple of wagons, limbers etc from Hinds, also ready painted, for some table fluff.

After a hard month in both real life and hobby time, there is light at the end of the tunnel and I will be sorting out some old school loveliness this weekend and really looking forward to it as well!!