Lots going on here!

I recently decided that making weekly blog posts was becoming a bit pointless so in future it's just going to be as and when I feel like it! Clearly blogging is not what it used to be but I like to keep a record of everything I paint and do here so most certainly will not stop blogging!

Commission stuff.

With Johns most recent batch of painted figures returned to him, (including the Minifigs carriage with which I think it's fair to say he was extremely pleased), I painted the latest 15mm ECW's for Graham, this time some cavalry plus 24 artillerymen, before moving onto the two latest WSS French regiments of horse for Tony, all of which have gone off in the post today. next up are a regiment of 12 Catalonian mounted Dragoons for John, more lovely plastic Strelets. If I have just one issue with the Strelets cavalry figures it is that it is a bit of a challenge to get the riders fully seated down onto the horses, it does require a bit of careful trimming inside the legs and a decent quality liquid superglue that sets quickly as each figure needs to be held firmly in place by hand until it sets. The tendency is for the riders to spring back up otherwise. Once set everything is good to go and once again they are wonderfully detailed figures. I thought the horses looked a little small for the riders until I remembered a recent phone conversation with Tony (Foy) where he mentioned this set and the fact that dragoons of this period were issued with smaller mounts than the line cavalry so it's obviously an accurate touch. On the way are more 'Empire' Fantasy 10mm's from Simon.

More Peter Pigs of course for Graham!

And for Tony ........

The joy of turning crisp shiny castings into painted soldiers is what gives me so much pleasure and satisfaction!

Next for Old John.

6mm Crimean War project.

As far as the Crimean War 6mm project I have reached the point where I can focus on playing some games with them and just paint the odd additional bases as and when. Both armies are now of equal size with each consisting of:

12 bases of line infantry @72 figures  (864)

3 bases of rifles/light infantry skirmishers @18 figures (54)

5 bases of cavalry @24 figures (120)

3 artillery batteries @ 2 guns and limber teams.

So the entire collection so far exceeds 2000 painted figures.

I had another bash this week on the card table, a 10 x 10 (75mm) grid using smaller armies than previously. I'm convinced that a square grid is the way to go for me rather than hexes, but a slightly larger grid is required to allow better placement of terrain around the bases and a more traditional wider board to allow more play on the flanks. To this end I am going to make a dedicated 4 x 3 portable board from my Geek Villain textured mat, carefully dot it out in 90mm squares which will create a 10 x 13 grid. From the other half of the cloth I will create numerous hills as in the images below but covered to match the rest of the board which should look good. A lot of thought and planning has gone into this decision over the past couple of week, playtesting a C&C based game on the square grid, making a number of textured MDF hexes ( I just really want to move away from hexes this time) and working out the ideal size of grid to fit a 4 x 3 dedicated board. Hills can be made as singles or more realistically to fit into several squares with more irregular shape but with the grid still dotted out on the surface. All of this will finally come to fruition over the next week or two.

Latest addition to the Allies is the first of the Turkish bases. References seen to vary on the shade of blue so I went with the lighter. Thanks to Bob The Old Painters Crimean blog, very useful throughout my project.