A quick update!

Well, that's another week flown by so that's just 3 weeks now before we head back to the UK. Packing is underway and I have bought several strong boxes in readiness for the 40mm collection.

Meantime I made this little Spanish Guerrilla 'command' base to use up 3 spare figures I had left in my drawer, just a bit of fun. The Marines are being posted to my daughter back in the UK for when I get back. I did weaken and place an order for 12 of the Flashing Blade Cacadores mentioned previously, ordered via the Fightin' 15's webstore, they were posted next day to here in Spain so hopefully could be here by end of the week. They will just see me over the final period and give me a little something to focus on beside moving! They will comprise a two base unit of skirmishers and are armed with rifles.

I now also have on order the S&S Polish Guard lancers pack and command pack from Andy at OG for when I'm back, in addition to the 2 guns for my RHA. On the subject of RHA I have received the first couple of photos of the rocketeer conversions. The officers pose has been tweaked, hand on hip and head turned slightly, I really like this one. The other guy will be in the act of loading a rocket onto the launch frame and I am also having the rammer figure made open handed to take a second rocket. Work in progress. Digital conversions take the project to a whole new level and are pretty cheap to have done from the original files.

Winding down but planning ahead.

The Royal Marines have landed so Andy informs me. I just now need to decide if it's worth getting them sent to Spain, as much as I'm really keen to get started on them it probably makes sense to wait now until we are back in the UK before Christmas. Chris at Sash & Sabre was kind enough to do me the standard 20 figure pack which includes command figures in this case, plus an additional 5 pack as I wanted to keep all of my units at 24 figures. As mentioned before it will a firing line battalion. I found this wonderful recruiting poster whilst researching, with the promise of 'plenty of beef pudding' and 'wine after dinner' for the new recruit.

I doubt that I will manage more than another single post between now and Christmas, but once settled I have plans to grow this collection and to fight some battles with it, hopefully against a real live opponent. Sash & sabre have just this month released the 40mm French Dragoons, I also have plans for Polish Lancers of the Guard, Vistula infantry battalion and a battalion of French converged Grenadiers. The New Year will also see the start of my planned Spanish forces using Perry figures. I also recently discovered these fine 40mm Portuguese Cacadores (click) by Flashing Blade, another must for the future.

Finally for now Ian sent me a couple of pictures of the complete 5 figure RHA crew masters. They have been resized by Graham to match the Perry/S&S ranges. I can see they just require a little clean up. As Ian intends putting them into a mould I'm going to wait and have my crews in metal now.

Roofs and rockets!

Plans for the Great Strategic Withdrawal from Spain are ongoing, with 16th December being the planned date to leave..........

Meantime, in order to keep stress levels to a minimum I have returned to working on the roofs of three buildings I started. After much thought I decided to go with plastic straws laid onto the roofs, covered in two coats of white filler and then painted vallejo Burnt Red as a base shade. At that stage it still did not look right and I put them away for a few days. Yesterday I decided to try to lift and highlight the tiles by painting individual tiles in a lighter mix of the red plus German camo orange. I was genuinely surprised how well this worked as an impression of the pantiles, it will do very nicely for me indeed. Just need to tile the third building now before adding window frames. The Moorish style tower is still on the to do list, probably once back in the UK, I think the four buildings in this scale will suffice for my needs. Walls and roads will follow.

The RHA crew are still work in progress and Ian informs me that Graham has printed five figures in slightly different sizes in order to see which best matches existing ranges. Once this is decided upon a full set will be printed and Ian is then going to put them into a mould via Griffin (click), with some other 40mm figures he is having made. This means I will have the option of having the crews in metal, which does seem the better option. The guns are on order from Andy but it will be some time before they arrive so this will probably be a project for back in the Uk. Creating a set of 40mm RHA gunners started as something of a dream for me and I am incredibly grateful to Ian and Graham for all their work in making this become a reality.

I am now researching the rocket battery base I plan, I know I'm pushing it a bit here as the newly trained rocketeers were not sent out to Spain from Woolwich until 1813, but you just got to have them! I'll only require two digital conversions to open handed crew and I'll use the existing firer and officer along with scratch built launcher and rockets.

A few research images so far.

It will all be over by Christmas ...... hopefully!

With the house now sold with luck we should be back in the UK in time for Christmas, as our buyers are keen to be in before then and we are keen to be back spending the festive season with our family. I now face the prospect of packing up and transporting almost 550 x 40mm figures, oh and the rest of the household as well including Poppy the dog and Sheldon the cat who travel on Uk pet passports. Should be fun. Just need to find somewhere to live now!

So things will be quiet here for a while although once I get my hands on the Marines and the RHA crew they will give me something to paint as we pack and prepare. Given that I just finished off the 12 figures that make up the 95th Rifles unit I thought I would get the British infantry together for some pictures, 7 line battalions plus 3 skirmish units.

Try as I might I simply cannot find the enthusiasm to paint anything beside 40mm Napoleonic figures. The box of plastic winter soviets was a disaster for me as the amount of assembly required I have no patience for these days, most have two separate arms and a separate weapon and I just could not get the rifles etc to sit correctly in the hands so back in the box it all went. I gave up and accepted the fact that I now only wish to paint the big metals, I am happy with that.

Once back in the Uk and settled I do plan to wargame with these figures, I do a lot of mental planning as to how I will do this and hopefully will find an opponent locally. I also plan to attend some shows and meet up with fellow bloggers.

Meantime, here are the British infantry so far, it's worth noting that the basing is typical 28mm size of 20mm x 25mm deep per figure, so the footprint is not over large, my  figures are more shoulder to shoulder than many 28mm units I see and that looks about right to my eyes.