Spain, 1 year on and looking ahead.

Hard to believe it's a year ago that we moved to Spain. We have no regrets about making the choice to come here to the Costa Blanca, Valencia, it's a beautiful part of Spain and the people are incredibly warm and friendly. However, it has become apparent that we are far more isolated up here on the Monte Corona hillside than we wanted to be, and we now want to be nearer the beachfront in Gandia with all of the social life that surrounds it within walking distance. We also want to be able to spend more time back in the UK with the family as we are really missing them. So, it's time to downsize to an apartment in Gandia to begin phase 2 of our new life in Spain.

When you spend time planning and thinking about the future you tend to think over all aspects of life, and in my case my hobby is always a consideration. Looking back I always said that one day I would own a large Napoleonic collection, and the acquisition of the 40mm's from Andy proprietor at Old Glory UK last year started me on the path to finally achieving that ambition, and since then anything else I do I quickly lose interest in. This must therefore be the main focus of my hobby time going forward. I absolutely love these figures, there is not a day when I'm not admiring them, handling them or painting them and I really want to get them on the table now and expand them.

So I thought I would jot down some random goals for the Summer ahead, I find it helps to get this stuff out and down on paper sometimes.

The collection has now topped 400 painted figures, including 60 cavalry, mounted officers and 4 guns and crews. But I really want to add the following:

• French heavy cavalry ( I cannot resist cuirassiers) only a single unit in the Peninsular, but I must have some. Sash & Sabre from OG.
• More British or KGL heavy dragoons - Sash & Sabre from OG. These are lovely cavalry figures in bicornes.
• A full battalion of Swiss infantry (24 figures, 12 are done). French line infantry marching pack, Sash & sabre from OG.
• British Light infantry deployed as skirmisher bases. 7 figures per base on standard 120mm frontage. I think 2 bases or 14 figures will suffice. These will have to come from Perry Miniatures, a good match for my S&S figures - I already have some in the collection. The Perry's are a bit more expensive at £4.25 per infantry figure and £9.50 per cavalry figure but very nice castings. I like their British Light Dragoons firing carbines from the saddle very much.

So far, so good. Another ambition I have is for some RHA guns and crews. Problem is that nobody makes them! I have been in touch with Steve Barber who is currently working on a commission for a set of 40mm characters based upon the Sharp series and they are wonderful, especially the 'French Spy' figure. Steve has said that he could make a set of 4 Peninsular RHA crew under his 'Shared Commission' service, and is enthusiastic about the subject matter. The cost includes the creation of the masters by Steve, and moulds by Griffin (excellent). To make this viable I would need to find another  40mm Napoleonic collector to share this commission.

Wargames.
Moving to an apartment will lose the 'underbuild' space I have for a permanent wargame table, but a temporary  table is certainly managable. My intention is to play DBN games on one side (plain boards) and C&CN games on the other using 150mm hexes 9 x 13.

I have abandoned the houses I was making below, just too big and not detailed enough, so in the bin they go! I found these, and they are perfect, although 28mm scale they are tall enough (around 125mm) to work with my figures at a scale down, they will also fit the hexes and make good modular areas for DBN. Oh, and they are supplied ready painted and are lightweight robust material which helps with postage to Spain.
http://www.tablescape.co.uk/Catalogue/Mediterranean/MediterraneanRange.htm

The winter project is on hold, I dunno, just something about painting plastic kit figures is not doing it for me anymore, although I still like the tanks, all are back in the storage boxes for now.