Too much time at the gym

Hello again.

What do you get if you cross The World's Strongest Man, a bumper lot of steroids and protein shakes, a few severe knocks to the head playing rugby or American Football, some serious bad attitude and a cache of firearms?

The answer is a gang of Goliaths, of course.

The whole gang of ten.

I recently spent a few happy hours cutting and gluing these boys together, newly released from their sprues within my copy of the "Necromunda" boxed set. I built them pretty much as per the instructions, but have a number of parts left over, so if I want more with two-handed weapons or want another heavy weapon or two, I simply buy another box of these figures and build what I want, now I have an idea what goes with what.

They were very simple to construct and the shaped shoulder joints made fitting the arms a lot stronger in the join than previous GW kits, which were basically just flat faces butted together. My only quibble was with the two figures below.

The "quibbles".

These two were a tad problematic because they were running, with just one foot in contact with the ground, which means a greater risk of breakage. Now, the question of whether to pin these kits together or not is an oft-asked one, but I tend not to bother as my experience of these kits has not seen me break too many as a result of simply gluing them together. I am personally more likely to break off weapon putting them back into a foam storage tray! However, I decided to pin the left foot into the base on both of these and, with the one on the right still looking a little tenuous in his connection, I glued a piece of sprue rubble under his right foot for extra stability too. Job done.

They are not exactly top of my painting list at present, but they will be done at some point. I also have to build their opponents from the Escher gang and they look like they will need a lot more pinning to the bases for stability than the Goliaths did. Then, I might actually get a game in!

G

Almost there...

Hello again.

Last time out, I postulated on the year's activities and also stated that I had still to finish the unit of grenadiers I have been working on for a good while now.

Well, in a flurry of activity, I finally finished painting the last four figures for the regiment, consisting of a base from the 35th Foot, varnished all sixteen figures I needed to do to finish the regiment to my satisfaction and even managed to base them, having previously prepared the MDF bases with a coat of earthy-coloured paint on both faces to assist against warping.

HM 35th Regiment of Foot grenadiers, newly painted as of yesterday. I wanted a mix of facing colours and this regiment featured at a number of actions during the FIW, so orange had a run out.

HM 27th Regiment of Foot (the Inniskillings). Buff facings this time and a grenadier cap a little different to the usual affair with the "GR" cypher. As this is the most senior regiment in my force, I gave them the command element to represent them.

HM 46th Regiment of Foot. My main source for this one was the colour plate depicting their ambush of French forces at La Belle Famille, as shown in the Osprey "Combat" series book "British Redcoat vs French Fusilier".

Last but not least comes HM 58th Regiment of Foot (Anstruther's), a line infantryman of which is also depicted in a colour plate in the aforementioned Osprey title. The yellow lace was a pain in the proverbial, but adds a nice contrast to the plethora of white lace shown on the other regiments.

Now, the plan was that the grenadiers would be matched by a battalion each of their parent regiment, so I have another five line battalions to do to make good on that premise. I have got as far as preparing and spray undercoating the first of these, this time using a few Redoubt command figures in the mix, with Eagle Figures for the basic line troops. I do not suppose it matters which one I do first, but as I started with a battalion of the 60th Royal Americans, perhaps the 58th should be next and I work backwards numerically. Then again, can I really be bothered with the trial of painting that yellow lace at the moment?

Either way, the plan's conclusion would see me with seven battalions of foot, including grenadiers, which is a tidy enough sum for the FIW.

To conclude, I should say that today gave me the opportunity to texture the bases on these four stands of troops, so just grass and other flora and paint effects to do to see them properly finished. As I said at the top of this piece, "almost there".

G

Musings and news(-ings...)

Hello again.

No pics this time, as the weather, real life and sundry factors have limited my ability to get anything finished, let alone write about it, so I thought I would drop in a quick post about general stuff.

Item 1:
I still have not finished the unit of Combined Grenadiers for my FIW project. However, I am now painting the last four figures for the 24-strong unit and hope to get them done this weekend. I may even get around to some varnishing and basing! This has been a real labour of love and it must be two months since I started them.

Item 2:
Not having been totally idle on the painting front (see Item 1), I have also managed to cobble together the 10 Goliath gang figures from my pre-Christmas purchase of the "Necromunda" boxed game from Games Workshop. Just the girlies of Escher to do, ten on to the inevitable need to paint them...

Item 3:
Last year, I managed to squeeze in maybe a dozen games at most, with a chunk of them coming at various shows with the "Wyrley Retinue". This year, however, it looks like we are having a year off, as life intervenes for many of us. Not a situation I am happy with, but there you  go. It also means I will now have to pay to get into the shows I do visit rather than spend all my cash, not to mention of chunk of available plastic, on purchases. Ho hum.

Item 4:
The future...

Hmmm.

I have so many potential projects, as many of you will know, and the aforementioned time constraints will mean I still have many potential projects this time next year!!!

So, what do I think I will get up to this year?

• The FIW still holds my attention so I expect to have a few more units done over the next several months, all of which I will display here on the blog for those who want to look.
• I also foresee the purchase of some cavalry and other bits this year to bring my FIW aims back across "the Pond" to Europe for some regular Seven Years' War activity.
• I also expect to get my Necromunda stuff done, along with some terrain. Whilst I can foresee some MDF purchases to facilitate that terrain, I can also see a few scratchbuilt pieces coming along as the mood takes me.
• Crimean War. Having bought loads at Derby last October, including extra reference material, this is still something I want to do soon. I can see me adding to what I have (Cossacks and Scots primarily, I think), probably at the WMMS show this March.
• I intend to buy a load of suitable bases for my 10mm ACW lead pimple which may see me kick-start this project.

On the subs' bench are:

• The French Wars of Religion, for which I have numerous figures already.
• A return to my Williamite and Jacobite forces for the Irish conflict c.1690, prompted by the "League of Augsburg's" release of various uniform and flag PDF's.
• Something totally out of the blue (as always!)
• A return to WH40K.
• An expansion of my Lord of The Rings forces for Mordor, now I have so many reinforcements to add to my existing stuff.

Being a less than adequate clairvoyant, who knows how much of the above will actually come to pass?

G

Penkridge Tabletop Sale

Hello again and a very Happy New Year to all.

Last Sunday, 7th January, saw yours truly drive the five miles or so to the village of Penkridge in Staffordshire, England, to visit this inaugural wargaming "show" of the year. It is not really a show, I suppose, but was full of wargaming goodies and people I had not seen for a while.

As well as catching up with a number of notaries of my acquaintance, I no sooner walked through the door into the hall, which was free to enter (!!!), looked in the very first box on the very first table and promptly fished out 62 Mordor Orcs for the "Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game", bagged them up an handed over the princely sum of £20 for the privilege. A good start, at just over 30p per figure!

Moving on past sundry traders with assorted wares, I came to one worthy I know well and whose products I have bought in some number before, namely Walter Anstiss of Commission Figurines. He relieved me of £10 for four of his MDF figure storage trays, which should have cost me £12. Thanks again Walter.

Finally, rummaging through another box of Lord of the Rings "Evil" figures, I came across Gothmog the Mordor Orc, on foot and mounted on a warg, for the sum of £12. A total of £42 down, I left after more rummaging with a sizeable addition to my Mordor forces and something to store my burgeoning 10mm collection in. A quick visit to my local DIY store and I had a 9 litre plastic storage box to hold the four MDF trays once built. Job done.

I had gone to the sale looking for MDF bases and perhaps something to add to my Sci-Fi scenery for forthcoming intended games of "Necromunda", which I did not find, but was well happy with the stuff I did pick up.

A couple of hours well spent!

I believe there is another show at the same venue on the first Sunday in July, so get yourself along for a browse.

G

The pinkoes and peaceniks in society will no doubt baulk at the thought of a "war" gaming show being held at the "PEACE MEMORIAL HALL", but I just think it is indicative of how sad and deluded such people are to find offence at every turn simply for the sake of having something to shout at the world about. Obviously, and with due grace, the owners/ custodians of this facility are above such puerile and entirely spurious correlations.

The haul.