Christmas Swag and 1st Entry to winter challenge

So here I am starting my third winter challenge, it seemed fitting that this forms my return to the hobby when it was into the first month of the forth challenge when I fell out of love with painting and gaming. I am already staggered with the output of (to me) new challengers and I look forward to getting to know the people behind this talent.

not changed much just the hair has slipped

 In the spirit of returning my first entry throws back to a young James who in 1989 was all about the GW and Warhammer, I had been one of the kids who watch the channel four NFL show so when GW released and game based on football but set in the Warhammer world I was sold. I played Blood bowl with a human team for a good year or two and if exams had not got in the way I would probably have been one of those who kept the game alive as a cult classic since. But while I did not play BB again I did keep the passion so after a commission opened my eyes to the vast collection of BB miniatures from other companies I started to collect them with a view to one day restarting. 

My Christmas Day haul

Giving yourself only 5 days to complete your Dad’s Christmas present with no plan B might seem mad to some but anyone who watched my output in my first Winter challenge will know I work best with tight a schedule.

I love the character in these figures the faces are the real star of the sculpts, the team consists of 2 throwers 2 blitzes 2 Black Orc Blockers and 8 linemen. All the numbers are free hand and the base has colour mark so indicate the position.

I continue to work on other figures ready for my second entry been working on some fantastic 40mm Rifles.

 

Fresh start, Fresh period and inspiration.

So with a return to the painting table and wargames in general, I wanted to look at a new period for me. I have often wanted to get into the American Civil War, even more so since reading the Bernard Cornwell Rebel books

I cant put my finger on why but reading the Cornwell books always inspires me to paint armies, after reading the Arthurian series I painted a Warhammer Ancients Arthurian army and the Sharpe books have lead me to delve into the Two Fat Ladies Sharp's Practise and the Perry miniatures 40mm range.

So when I resently sold my old climbing gear I put the money towards and new period for me and I have to admit that the attraction of the ACW is the Perry miniatures plastic box sets meaning if I want to expand my foothold in the period it will not break the bank. So I was very pleased to see that the Perry twins have created the ideal kit for me to get into this period in the form of their Battle in a box.

While the 40mm Sharp's Practise figures will be painted over the winter the ACW might wait a bit longer. My Daughter is looking to fly the nest in 2017 and that will open up her room to become our hobby room half will be dedicated to knitting and sewing (my wife's passion) and the other half will be my wargames room including a good sized wargames table. All this will be in the future, I hope that I will be able to document the building up of my hobby room in 2017 on this blog.

Painting Update

I have been under the weather for a few days with out going into details I will just say its good my painting room is near my bathroom :)
I have been a busy boy though and progressed several different projects, I have tow more Pulp Fiction Spys completed plus the next Ebay figure (Wee Wullie). I have been busy painting more Masi Warriors but did not get them photographed.
Today I dashed over to Foundry and met up with Loki, I now have my wargames boards and they are fantastic, I spent an hour chatting to the Foundry boys about Blog-Con and will compose a post about that over on the Blog-Con blog tonight or tomorrow.
Anyway had a mad dash around the house this afternoon finding documents so I could act as a guarantor for my daughter's rental flat, it is all sorted now and she picks up her keys on Monday (no painting for me that day then lots of box lugging)
Anyway enough chat on to some nice completed figures.

Painting Table's WIP

So today is the first day since the end of the challenge that the painting table has hit full speed again. I have a few commissions on the go, the last 15mm Para's and the start of a huge Blood bowl Orc and Goblin team. On top of this I am doing the Generals for our French SYW army and for no other reason than I always wanted to I am painting a 28mm Nap British unit (or army will see how it goes, I have enough figures).

Last night during my break I was having a surf and found some thing that fired my gaming juice's, I used to love WFB I have in my time owned painted and sold most of the armies you could have for WFB including Nippon and Norse (I should point out I was lucky to have a Dad who bought the armies) the peak of my gaming was 3rd edition and I slowly lost the love since then. So imagine my joy to find that there is a group of gamers who feel just the same. Check out the following blog Warhammer for adults  and even better they have a weekend of 3rd edition gaming at Foundry in Aug oldhammer event foundry 2013 if like me you are a lover of 3rd ed and like a good forum check out http://bloodforum.treps.net/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=388
All I need to do now is paint up (and buy) my Dwarven army and I might just be nipping down to Nottingham at the end of Aug.
I was glad to see my last post has got plenty of reaction I am hoping I can keep posting enough of interest to keep the visitors coming.
Peace James

Napoleonic Project 2012

Plans for 2012...

     I have been wargaming since I was a lad, but I have never played or owned an army from the Napoleonic era, why?

I guess the real answer would be that growing up the only guys I met who played Nap were for want of a better word ” up themselves”, and full of how fantastic their period and figures were . This and the complex’s uniforms never had me rushing to buy and paint any figures.

 Till now!!

One of the commission jobs I have done this year was a large unit of Nap Prussian and you know what I enjoyed it, that along with the Black Powder rules has made me look at the many plastic Nap sets available and I have a cunning plan.

I along with a lot of other people found a new love for the period through the Sharpe books (or films if you do not read much). In the books the first major battle Sharpe is involved with is Talavera this battle has always stuck with me and a little digging has found loads of research and a great book by Andrew W. Field entitled “ Talavera Wellington’s First Victory in Spain” ISBN 1-84415-268-5. This has a great full break down of the British forces involved in the battle.

My plan for the next year or so is to build up the whole army based up for BP I will work out a ratio that gives me a workable size for the units but I plan to base them on big blocks that will be part base part diorama. I am going to Blog the whole project and keep a running total of the time taken and the cost of figures and materials.

I will be doing pure TT figures mostly with the Army Builder Dips & sprays, by this I hope to show that with a little elbow grease and hard work anyone can produce a great looking TT Napoleonic army. When I can along the way I will do Tutorials and show where I obtain my materials. This is not going to be a speed project but one I will fall back on when I have no commission work to do.

Other work that is on the books for me in 2012 is an ongoing French Indian war project and a couple of ancient armies to complete.

Once I have a blog up and going I will provide a link for anyone who would like to follow it.