Spain, why Spain???

 Although I have travelled a fair bit over Europe and Canada I have never been to Spain, no real interest in the beaches etc, so it was never on my list and now I find myself in my mid 60's it is never going to happen, Spain and me will never meet!  So why do I find myself wargaming in Spain so much?

I have a Peninsular project with Brits, French and Portuguese who will be fighting in Spain, I have a First Carlist War project with the Carlists just about done and the Isabelinos on the go and now I find myself going into the Spanish Civil War!!

Now I don't do modern wargaming the nearest I get to is the Quar and it's sort of fantasy WW1 setting, so how did I go down the SCW route?  Ebay had an interesting starter set on sale, the guy had painted up two 20 a side units plus some buildings, very nicely done to, very impressed with the standard of painting and modeling, he did a really good job, I looked at it a couple of times and then put it on my watch list, the guy contacted me and offered me the set with 10% off, so I bought it!

There are 20 International brigade and 20  Carlists plus the buildings you can see in the background, the figure are very nicely painted and based and the buildings look great and two of them were scratch built and the ruined one is a Warlord kit that fits in well. Enough to get me started and gaming right away you would think, but no there is more to come!

The obligatory Ospreys were purchased and then it was off perusing the Empress Miniatures catalogue and off course a Republican army pack was purchased and a Nationalist army pack was purchased! The packs come with 60 odd figures a side a couple of tanks and machine guns and crews, so I now have a very decent size project, another on the go, when will the madness end!!

I don't really need to add any more to this project although maybe a couple of the strange little armoured cars that featured during the conflict might be the final purchase just to finish it off.  The only thing now is to find a decent rule set that will do, not being a modern gamer a fair bit of reading of reviews and other blogs will hopefully point me in the right direction.

Anyway my fascination with Spain continues, on the wargames table at least, I have enough to get a game in as I build up the rest of the forces so it is a nice place to be in with this project.

Hopefully this will be the last time I go to Spain but who knows as the whole El Cid thing interests me a fair bit as well!

Hobby time at last!.....

 Finally got some time to do some wargaming stuff, work has been busy and last weekend it was off to Stirling for a record fair so no wargaming hobby time until Sunday.

Some Minden Russians finally get some love! I have had a three of small orders from Minden recently for some SYW Russians but they have been sitting in their boxes since they arrived. With a bit of time to myself on Sunday morning I thought this would be the time to start them off, 2 times 16 men musketeer units and 3 times 6 men cavalry squadrons consisting of cuirassiers, dragoons and horse grenadiers, this is the size of unit I will be using for this army, probably a dozen infantry,six cavalry and a couple of 3 gun batteries of artillery plus officers etc.

Ordering from Minden is a treat, they get delivered in quick time and Jim throws in some freebies that are always appreciated, top notch service. Prepping the figures takes next to no time as there is practically no flash on these figures, the are more or less ready to go straight from the box.  I glued them to their bases and got the horses primed so happy enough to get these started. No real time next weekend as it is another record fair next Sunday, down to Dundee for one of the best  fairs in Scotland.

I should be able to crack on with these in a fortnight or so and prime the infantry and start to put some pain on them. I have a couple of more infantry regiment still in the box plus a couple of mounted officers and an artillery crew and gun, so plenty to get this army up and running, just need a bit of time to get it really rolling, 

I will probably get another order into Jim for the next batch of Russians but I am swithering as I need some French artillery crew and guns so need to think about this before ordering, we shall see.

So until next time when hopefully I will have some progress to show......