Back from the Lake district

Not that you probably spotted that I was away!  Mrs E and I took the caravan to a rather nice caravan site between Keswick and Penrith for a few days R & R.  No TV very little internet connectivity and no blogging.  It was very relaxing.  The weather was kind and mostly only rained at night.  There is something very soothing about the sound of rain on a caravan roof, as long as you are inside the caravan at the time of course.  Our dog enjoyed the experience of running around in Crow Park and swimming in a couple of lakes and almost everywhere was dog friendly.  If you are in Keswick I can strongly recommend The eatery next to the Lakeside Theatre the food is really good and they have a few dog snacks available.

Brougham Castle Keep

Another view of the Castle

On the military front we visited Brougham Castle (pronounced Broom, so I suspect JBM has had a hand in this).  Carlisle Castle was closed while were there as it was before 10.00am and we got engrossed in other stuff (More food actually I can vouch for the chocolate cake in the Tullie Museum cafe).  On the History front we made our annual trip to Castle Rigg Stone Circle and also took in Long Meg and her Daughters as well.

Long Meg herself along with Mrs E and Mabel

Other than that we walked, drank beer and ate more than we really should have done.  It was horrible, honest.

'Surprise view' above Keswick.  Derwentwater in the foreground.

On my return my order from Commission figurines had arrived.  This consisted of one pack of Infantry in Bicornes to be used as Spanish in 1805 issue uniform or as militia, one pack of French Line with Grenadiers in Bearskins to be used for Spanish Grenadiers and French Line (I mistakenly thought it was a pack consisting of just grenadiers), two Packs of Infantry in Belgique Shakos for use as Portugeuse in Barretinas, two packs of French line in Shako, and some strips of Skirmishers and generals.  The skirmishers all seem to be French looking but at 6mm after a paint job I doubt anyone will be able to tell what style of Shako is portrayed.

I'm already wondering which packs would be the best bet for additional grenadiers for the Spanish, but won't be ordering anything until I have painted the 600 plus new figures that just arrived!  Pictures of those will follow (eventually).

Joy of Six 2026

After last year's Joy of six I wasn't convinced that I would stir my stumps and attend again.  This was partly due to the heat and partly due to the low interest shown by event participants in interacting with the attendees.  However, this year's show rolled around and I thought I would give it another chance.  The heat had reduced from the earlier 30 degrees plus to something more British and there were grey clouds on the horizon, perfect.  Of course this being me I set off in a short sleeved shirt, shorts and sandals, without a jacket!  Fortunately the rain held off.

As normal I parked at Nunnery Square park and ride and hopped onto a tram to complete the trip into the city centre.  I went one stop further than in previous years and alighted at Castle Square (a huge 100 metres or so further!) but, and this is a huge but, the walk to the venue is much easier from that stop as it is a straight and level walk along Arundel Gate to Sheffield Hallam University.

This year the entry cost was £6 which I think is a whole pound up from last year.  That still represents good value though.  A couple of traders and games had cancelled and to my mind it was slightly less busy than last year.  Both of which I suspect was due to the heat of the previous few days.  Even so there was still a lot of 6mm goodness to see.  Better yet the game teams and the vendors were more than happy to chat.  Must have been the heat last year then.

I always start the same way at this show, which is to take a stroll around and see what the games look like.  There was the usual range from Mech's firing missiles and lasers at each other in far future cityscapes through to Greeks having a bit of a barney at point of spear, and pretty much everything in-between.  The standard of games was up to it's usual standard with some really nice terrain on display.

Having had a quick look around I turned my attention to the traders and actually bought some stuff, unlike last year. Heroics & Ross provided me with some World War Two tanks and AT guns which I will need for the Fistful of T34s campaign.  True to form I bought some totally useless Soviet light tanks (well marginally better than the German stuff I already have, a couple of KV-1s who will masquerade as KV-1s flamethrower tanks, a couple of Pak75 AT guns and some artillery crew figures.

More pitiful tanks although the KVs are a bit moreof a beast

I then wandered over to Brigade Models to pick up a Gettysburg Seminary and Cemetery Hill gateway.  These will come into play later if I can arrange an Altar of Freedom game covering (yes you guessed it) the three days of Gettysburg.

If you have seen the movie Gettysburg you should recognise these buildings

Lastly on the buying front, after a look at Commission Figurines display table, I bought some of their 6mm MDF Napoleonic figures.  At £2 for 96 infantry its a gateway drug for the period!  I spent a whole £10 and came away with 192 British Inf in stovepipe shakos. 192 French Infantry in Shakos and a pack of 36 French Cuirassiers/Dragoons. I have already painted a sample to see how my usual technique for 6mm has to be amended for MDF figures (spoiler - it changes a fair bit.  but more on that in a later post).

Commission Figurines Display, Napoleonic's closest to the camera

The MDF figures have a fair bit of detail laser engraved on them, more than I expected to be honest.  Oh and as a warning if you buy any don't throw away the little MDF 'pips' that are in the bags of infantry, those are the drums for the command strips.  Don't ask!  Fortunately there are plenty of spares in each pack.

Sorry about the gratuitous thumb shot, but look at the engraved detail.

It was back to the games next and I took a seat in the Cold War gone hot participation game put on by "Gaming at Si's House".  This used the Battlegroup Northag rules and was fairly enjoyable, despite my complete inability to make a comms check to call in artillery on the Soviet hordes!  This was almost certainly the most popular participation game at the show. 

My view of the table, it got busy soon after this with Soviets galore entering at the far end

Other games were there aplenty.  Visually my favourites were The Strength and Honour demonstration game of Civitate 1053.  Terrain was good and the extension to cover the Feudal period worked well. period.  The players were happy to spend time explaining how everything worked and I gained a couple of clever ideas on how they set up the terrain.

Civitate - it's terrain like this that make games in smaller scale 

More Civitate action can you see the grid markers, I couldn't

A lot of games had terrain that I would be proud to replicate.  Here is another good looking table from the Loft of War who put on Langoot 1748.  As with Civitate the ground colours aren't overly intrusive and aren't a single monotone green.  Plus the game looked like it was being enjoyed, which is the whole point I suppose.

Games Ranged from Classical Greece through to a couple of Science Fiction games.  The latter were popular with the younger attendees.  In fact I saw a number of children at the show, and they didn't look like they were unhappy to be there either.

This was a different take on things, one concept over three periods

Above is a set up which took me a minute to understand.  It is urban warfare in three different periods including a future mech warfare set up at the far end.

I was very happy to see a participation game of Alter of Freedom underway.  I like those rules as they put players into a different gaming space by focussing upon the Army commander level where they have to worry about the tempo and timings of the army and also have subordinates who may not be exactly as good as they might like.  The scenario was Gaines Mill 1862 part of the Peninsula Campaign.  Compared to the last AoF game I played this is a smaller board with more troops, so it is crowded.  When I was watching Dave was explaining the priority point bidding system to a player who was coming up against the restrictions his subordinates were imposing on him by the abilities (or lack of them).

Gaines Mill 1862 using Altar of Freedom run by Dave Benton

Overall there was a lot to see and do and plenty of things to spend money on.  I always feel it's nice to see things in the flesh before spending and the option to do that for 6mm stuff is fairly limited.  Players and vendors were relaxed and happy to chat which was a marked improvement on last year.  My doubts have been quashed and I hope to be able to attend again next year.

Last but not least.  As a taster here is a picture of the first Napoleonic's I have painted since my Airfix days.  The pom-poms finishing but I need me to decide how I'm organising them as units before I paint them in the right colours.  Undercoating is a must as MDF soaks up paint and dulls the colour and I can't decide on whether to prime them in black (as below) or in white.

Poor image these little devils are hard to focus on.  My first attempt at Nap's in fifty years!

 

Finding gaming buddies

As I have previously mentioned I'm not really getting as many games in as I would like.  While there are a couple of wargames clubs over the water in Hull they all seem to meet on the days when I am already doing things.  Typical eh!  So I took the bull by the horns and posted on the local Facebook page for anyone interested in historical gaming.  I got one response and wouldn't you just know they live in the same East Yorkshire town Mrs E and I left to come to our present home.  If we were still at the old house I could have walked to their house in 5 minutes!  Even better our areas of interest overlap as he has some Dark Ages period armies.

Still we are both prepared to travel and it is only around 30 minutes drive.  As we are both retired we aren't limited to a fixed time or day.  So I'm going to sort a game out here and he is going to sort one out in turn.  If it works and my contact Paul Dawson over in York is available we could have a small historical gaming group up and running before too long.  I think I will dust off my copy of Altar of Freedom to start with and play the first Manassas/Bull Run game again as I already have the terrain built for that.

By the way I haven't named the new contact for the time being as I don't know his position on social media.

Where did the last few weeks go?

 .....or what's my excuse for not blogging?

To be honest it's because I have been busy on those dratted 'Real Life' things and haven't had a lot of interest to post about.  From a wargaming perspective my early World War Two painting is almost done but my interest in Fistful of T34s sent me down a new rabbit hole looking at what are the best paint colours to use for the various German Camo schemes.  I swear they changed them more frequently than my socks!  I then tried a couple of choices out until I was sort of happy with the look.  More to come on this when I assemble some of the missing kit for late '42 Eastern Front use.

The Real Life (TM still pending) stuff included a long weekend away at the end of May with the Sealed Knot where we did a Seige of Colchester 1648 event.  The SK is to Civil War battles what the Reduced Shakespeare Company is to Richard the Third.  We don't really have the numbers to portray the scale of a major battle, but we try and I enjoy it.  This time out I was doing commentary and after only 30 some years doing guest appearances on the mic, I have been formally added to the commentary team.

The weather having been unseasonably warm after a period of fairly steady rain meant that garden had gone into overdrive.  which in turn means I have been, gulp, gardening.  I know, I did that last year, but that darn green stuff will keep growing.  I have to at least look like I'm trying to keep on top of things.

Last but very much not least, we had family staying with us while they had some heating and water refurb work done on their house over in the next village.  It felt a bit rude to disappear into the man cave while had guests (or so Mrs E told me) so I didn't.  And that M'Lud and members of Jury is my excuse for not blogging.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2026

 So it's 2026 and we are off to the races already.  But most importantly I hope everyone who reads this has a happy, healthy and prosperous 2026.  If you are not reading this, well.......

Now to business I have completed some of the part painted GHQ armour today and the 2026 lead pile spreadsheet is updated for the first time.  Note to self perhaps I should get out more.

Looking ahead I have the main part of the next two 17th Century posts completed. I just need to add some numerical stuff and list the sources I used.  These will cover German and Holy Roman Empire forces in the Thirty Years War.  After that I'm not sure what the themes for the year will be.  Hopefully more games so more game reports.  I still have a lot of stuff to paint and base and a few things to catalogue, these are Wild West and Sci-Fi figures mainly.  So you can expect some mind numbingly boring posts of the "wot I done lately" theme.

I will be trying to get these completed this month (the two left most rows are already done)

Interestingly (or perhaps not) the half tracks (M3s I think) in the photo are the oldest castings I own (of any genre or scale) as they must have been bought back in the mid 1970's.  Trust me it shows in the sculpting and casting quality.  I suspect they are early H&R or possibly Skytrex.  They seem huge against the H&R German Kfz70 trucks so I checked the dimensions via Wikipedia.  The M3/M5/M9 half tracks were bigger than the Kfz70 by around four feet in length.  However the casting is over scale by about 10 - 12% length wise although, oddly,  the width isn't far off being correct.  I'm not sure if I should keep them as museum pieces or bin them.  I'll have a go at tarting them up and see where to go from there.

The ten I have completed are early war British Cruiser tanks A9 and A10.

British Cruiser tanks 1930's designs which soldiered on until 1941-2

The A9 and A10 pictured above were very similar.  The A9 having the two MG turrets over the driver's position while the A10 did away with those as they were found to be shot traps.

This image popped up on Face Book as 12 years ago!  The original H&R order

You might recognise some of the vehicles in the above photo as being in the earlier part painted shot!  Worse than that some are still bare metal in the lead pile.  Yes dear reader, I really am that lackadaisical about painting projects.  Lets see how many I can clear in 2026 eh?  No taking bets at the back there.  Alright put down for a fiver on not all of them!

Progress is costing me money!

My trusty magnifying lamp has finally died!  Well to be accurate the fluorescent tube has failed the rest of the lamp is fine.   No problem though, I changed the tube when the original one failed a few years ago.  This time though, problem!  The type of tube is no longer in production and I cant find a replacement on line as everyone has sold out.  I spoke to Shesto Ltd (the maker of my lamp) who once again were very helpful.  They explained that all manufacturers have gone over to LED daylight lamps as they are more energy efficient and last much longer, up to 30,000 hours in fact.  Which is great but means I have to buy an entire new lamp rather than just replace the tube.

It's a dead lamp, gone to join the choir invisible (and yes we are ready for Halloween)

The range of new magnifier lamps is vast.  Most offer all sort of options I don't really need such as changing between primary colours, dimmer switches and the adjusting the range of colour temperatures (which reflects different daylight tones from a more blue white to a more yellow white tone) well that last one might be useful.  If they were still available a replacement bulb would have cost me around £16 plus an hour of my time doing the change over.  A new lamp will be between £30 and £60 for a similar specification.  The difference isn't huge but it is the cost of quite a few 6mm figures!  It's not that I'm cheap (alright you know me....I'm cheap) it's just that I don't like having to throw out a perfectly good item because of technology updates.  For now I will have to use an ordinary desk lamp until I decide which of the various replacement options I will go with.  Recommendations will be gratefully accepted.

Product review - Brushes from Rosemary & Co

I'm late to the party with this business I suppose.  I have been aware of them for some time and I've seen a number of figure painters who swear by their brushes, but it was only this last week when I finally got around to buying some.  What delayed my doing so was my preference for actually seeing the brush to be sure it held a good point before spending my money.  However, the number of positive reviews from around our hobby community and the fact that they had brushes which suited my needs on special offer pushed me over the edge.

Ordering was simplicity itself.  The website made selecting the type and size of brush I wanted really straight forward.  I. of course, headed straight to the special offer section (well you know how I like a bargain) and to my joy the type of brush I was looking for was on offer!  Unlike proper artists as I paint figures I work on a tabletop rather than an easel or a slope.  That means I'm looking for a brush which won't roll away if I put it down and has a distinct 'shoulder' between the handle and the ferrule so that the brush doesn't touch the tabletop and pick up dust, flock or basing sand.  It took me a couple of minutes or less to find exactly that style.  Even better the price was really good at around £5.00 per brush for pure sable in size 0 and 1.  I would have paid double that at Hobbycraft.

The brushes arrived within a couple of days via Royal Mail, none of the trouble and strife of xxx who seem to delight in loosing or misdelivering parcels around here!  They were really well packed as well.  the brushes all have great points, so I needn't have been concerned about having to see them in the flesh.  

The proof of the pudding is of course how they behave in use.  The brushes have a nice balance and the triangular 7" handles sit well in my hand when painting. The brushes don’t allow paint to wick down into the ferrule unlike synthetic brushes I have used in the past.  Paint flows well off the point too.  Clean up was straight forward as well.  All that said these are brand spanking new brushes so let’s see how they stand up to my heavy handed usage over the next few weeks.

It was fifty years ago today...

 ..the 5th of October 1975 to be exact, and I was sitting in my student friend Ron's car driving from North-East Lancashire to a small village just north of York.  We were just about to start our final year at University but before we did I had something to do.  Something I was really looking forward to.  When we arrived at our destination Ron asked me "are really you sure you want to do this?".  I don't know why, I suppose someone had told him he should double check, but I was sure.  I'm still sure it was the best decision I have ever made all these years later.  So I told him so. Ron nodded at me and solemnly warned me that if I changed my mind now he would break one of my legs if necessary so I couldn't back out.  He took these things very seriously, did Ron.

A few moments later he sat me on a bench patted his pockets nervously and then nudged me to stand and step forward....just as the first strains of the Wedding March started up and the soon to be Mrs E stepped into the church and walked down the aisle.

Yes good reader fifty years ago this very day I married Mrs E so today is our Golden Wedding Anniversary.  I haven't regretted a single moment.  I'm still not absolutely certain Ron was joking about the leg though.

Hitting milestones

I just spotted that I have just passed the 250,000 page views mark.  I'm thinking that my 45 followers will not have clocked that number of views up on their own (unless they are very, very bored) and as the number of views of recent posts has risen dramatically I'm guessing that I now have a substantial AI audience.  So I would just like to welcome my latest reader SKYNET and welcome it to sentience.  Now if you could just hold off on triggering nuclear war and sending Terminator units after humanity I'd be very grateful!

Be Gad, but it's warm

Of course it's summertime but even so this is hot!  I'm actually finding painting difficult as paint is skinning over on my coffee jar lid palettes and glue is going off before I finish mounting figures.  Time to do something different I suppose, but what?  I'd play a game but my usual venue, the conservatory, is self identifying as a sauna at the moment.  I've caught up on my SK regimental admin and read all my favourite blogs.  Hell, I even did some gardening until the heat beat me.

All of that said I have now reached the point where I have painted more 6mm cavalry than I have bought so far this year (so far being the operative phrase) and have rather a lot of 6mm foot on the painting table, so failing a sudden rush of blood at the Joy of Six show this coming weekend I'm on target to reduce the lead pile again this year.

In other news I had one of 'those' birthdays at the end of June.  One of those that ends in a zero, yes one of those that causes you take stock of the remaining time before you.  Sensible me says you really shouldn't keep buying more troops but the other me doesn't agree and points out how much I like looking at the serried ranks of completed figures.  Possibly time for an army parade for my little lead warriors?  At the last census I'm well over the 4,000 figure mark so it should be impressive.  I just need to clear a table top to lay everything out on.

Finally again in reference to birthdays I was lucky enough to receive the gift pictured below from my family.  Signed by the Under 21 and  First Teams courtesy of my granddaughter's boyfriend who worked for the club as an intern and then under a fixed term contract and provided performance analysis to both those sides.

Signed Blackburn Rover's shirts first and second strips.