Fusiliers finished

Today I was "Working From Home" for various reasons. Note the inverted commas. So I managed to finish my British Fusilier battalion, once again an eBay win which came painted and I have restricted myself to basic retouching, gloss varnishing and flocking the bases.

While waiting for successive coats of paint to dry I like to pick up my old guitar and strum a few chords ( BTW my guitar playing is even worse than my painting! ) , 100 house points for anyone who recognises what I was attempting to play ( NB the number of times a chord is written down here doesn't necessarily reflect the number of times it is played ) .

Brunswick Jaegers

The Brunswick Jaegers join the battle line.

Slightly understrength battalion, I may not field the officers which are Hinchcliffe and dwarf the other ranks.

I'm starting to get a feel for the level of painting / re-painting needed to achieve the desired 'retro' look. Basically 'less is more' and this approach means I should get the project completed before I have to sell the collection to help pay my care-home fees!

Edit: Just renewed my supply of Humbrol Matt Green #80 and gloss varnish, the two paints I use most of, and this reminded me of some discussion among fellow collectors of the variable quality of #80 recently. At least two people have mentioned taking a sample to their local DIY store and getting a large quantity matched and mixed. Take my advice, just use #80 as an undercoat and flock your bases, problem solved!

Highland Hankering and Longing for Lights

Thanks to a generous swap with Tony S I now have enough command figures for my highland battalion. Just need 8 more rank and file figures to get up to strength. The existing ORs are DK highlanders at high porte,

If anyone has any of these to spare please get in contact. I guess HH advancing figures would mix well with these and give a little variation.

I'm also close to getting enough figures for a British Light battalion, need 10 more of these, including command figures. The ones I have don't have the HH model number on the base so may be copies, but if so they are good ones.

I'm gradually identifying what I have available for swaps, let me know what you need. Currently have about 10 RHA crew (not all HH, some possibly Alberken/early Minifigs) , some Scots Greys, French Line lancers, French Dragoons, and a couple of French Cuirassiers and Carabiniers.If you are interested I can send photos.

Cheers

Dave

January blues (slightly delayed)

This should have been my January post, but it was delayed due to home improvement stuff, as per my last post. Better late than never, and the theme this month is 'Blue'.

On the left is a battalion of British infantry with blue facings, so could represent one of several regiments, or even a generic KGL unit. My original idea was to do dark blue/green facings and have them represent the 45th foot (The Sherwood Foresters) as a tribute to the area where I was born and raised, but I couldn't make a blue green mix that looked convincing in this scale. It either looked green or black. Oh well, I may well field them as the 45th anyway.

On the right is an 1815 Belgian battalion, dressed in a blue version of the British uniform. Figures kindly provided by Wellington Man. My sources vary on the light / grenadier plumes and hackles, so I've gone with what looks good to me, ie green for light and white for grenadiers with white over red plumes for centre companies.

Continuing with the Blue theme, in the background are a dozen Life Guards which will be my next painting task, time to have a go at painting some horseflesh after being a horse owner for 10 years. My OH will give me some stick if I get these wrong! The figures are DK, part of a swap with, once again, Wellington Man.

BTW if anyone has any british light cavalry (Hussars or Light Dragoons) available for swaps or for sale, please let me know!

Cheers

Dave

HintonHull hiatus

I was hoping my January post would include pictures of a couple more finished units ,unfortunately I can't physically get anywhere near my painting desk because the hobby room currently looks like this!

We're getting the bathroom updated and this is the only space where the fitter can store his stuff.
When this work is done we'll be 80% of the way to completing the house renovation, which is currently into the second year of what was supposed to be a six month project. I will have to devote some effort into completing the last 20% , so I'll be painting walls, ceilings and woodwork instead of wargame figures for a few weeks.

The upside is that the hobby room is double the size it was a year ago, which means I actually have room for a wargame table. Just need to negotiate with the long suffering OH to let me extend it from it's current 4x4 feet to 6x4 feet and I'll be a happy bunny.

Belated happy new year to all!

"Err nerr, Burney's escairped frum Elberr!"

My first British foot battalion represents the 15th (East Yorkshire) regiment, as a tribute to the area where I've lived for the last 40 years.

The title of this post is what these guys might have said in 1815 in a Hull accent.

Easy as A, B , C

In my last post I indicated I hadn't had much time for painting recently due to my horse riding activities and other stuff, so this week I've concentrated on re-furbishing some already painted figures I acquired from eBay. They just needed a slight touch-up and a coat of gloss varnish before basing / flocking, and here is the result.

I'm designating them RHA troops A, B and C.
I don't have enough draught horses, limbers and drivers for these yet, that said my playing surface is only 4ft x 4ft so it will look a little less cluttered without horse teams.

I also have a couple of Foot Artillery crews ready to paint, by mounting gunners individually rather than gluing them to the gun base I can mix and match to suit the scenario.

Cheers

Dave