Oh my it's 2020 already!

Happy new year! Well it is 2020 already;  a lot of stuff has occurred since my last post in July 2019.
Life became quite hectic, but it was not all bad, in that period I was able to visit a load of historical landmarks and museums with my baby son whilst on parental leave and was also able to deliver some awesome works whilst on exercise with the Army.

Here is a recap of some of the projects and places visited in that period:

Finished painted the 25mm scale La Belle Alliance inn by Hovels for Waterloo.

About seventy percent complete in painting the plastic Table Top terrain (now Warlord) medieval buildings.

Finished painting Warlord/Italeri plastic ruins.

Visited the Imperial War museum and dropped in to Dark Sphere shop near Waterloo and bought the Warlord/Italeri Mediterranean church kit. Its a whopper! Sadly the kit seems a bit incorrect as it was missing coping stones to the room. Thank fully I had some Wills Scenics coping stones. 

Finished painting yet another Regiment of Prussian Landwher. These are the old plastic Warlord models for a bit of variety, bought second hand off ebay and repainted. Painted between 27th of  December  2019 and the 2nd of January 2020. Still need basing.

Found the Colors of the St Pancras Battalion of the London Regiment in a Church near Euston Station.

Attended SELWG, loads of great demo games and walked out laden with yet more lead and resin for the ever expanding and not decreasing lead mountain.

Visited Chatham Historic Naval Dockyard. This is HMS Gannet. The site and collection is absolutely massive. A revisit in needed soon. 

Explored Rochester Castle. Very well preserved and able to access all levels of the building. 

Visited Richborough Roman fort on a sweltering day. Was able to pick up from the English Heritage shop a number of Osprey publications on the Roman Army.... a future project in the making!

Revisited the Western Heights fortifications at Dover. Years ago I had taken my soldiers to this site to teach them principals of defense. Drop redoubt is stunning in its scale. Sadly I still havent gained access to the Grand shaft as this is limited on its opening times.

Upnor Castle was a good visit, with a very well maintained powder room and a plethora of cannons on the site. This was the site of the famous Dutch raid on the English fleet on the Medway.

A must visit was the Royal Engineers museum at Chatham. This is my new parent cap badge as of 2018 so was good to visit and soak up the history of the Corps of Royal Engineers. A wide range of exhibits and artifacts in the museum with Engineer armour in the museum grounds. The over spill collection is at the Chatham Historic Naval Dockyard.

Treadhead Week - Part III

So all the models got built and undercoated. I have concerntrated on the Shermans to get them to a reasonable finish state slong with an Archer SPG and a Comet tank. The results look pretty good with decals and a light weathering. Need to restock on those decals by Doms Decals.

 Warlord Archer

 Warlord Comet

 Warlord Sherman Vs

 Warlord Sherman V with the S&S Dozer kit

Could not resist getting the Diamond T tank transporter and escort out!

Treadhead week - WW2 British Armour, Part II

So this is a mid week catch up on the armour project, so far so good. Only one kit lefy assemble, a M3 Half track.

As a side project, I created a scenic base board to photograph completed models on. This was a lump of old hard board modified with polyfilla, basing sand and static grass. Hopefully that will improve photographs on this blog. Now I need to source a back scene for it.

 So a discussion on the kits....

 Butler printed models preying mantis. The print lines are a bit deep for my taste and the chassis detail is a bit sparse. Like the prototype, the centre of gravity means it tips over! This will need weighting to prevent this. Very quirky prototype.

 Warlord Games late war Bofors 40mm cannon. This was a pig to assemble and needed shims building for the out riggers made from plastic card. However it looks amazing when assembled.

 Warlord Games Lloyd Mk II carriers, simple, detailed and very easy to assemble. Going to be used as tows for the 6pdrs.

 Warlord Games Churchill. Already discussed in a kit review on this blog, an easy build. Blittzkreigs resin offering is just as detailed and very quick to put together. It is a bit thinner than the plastic Warlord tank. No cleaning up needed on the resin.

 Warlord Games plastic Sherman Vs. Quick and detailed builds. My favorite of their plastic kits.

 S & S Dozer blade was simple to attach and makes for a mean looking model when mounted on the Sherman V.

 Clearly Warlord have changed their kit as it is larger than the previous plastic kit. New kit to the left, old in the centre and a Rubicon M4 on the right. The new kit scales well against Rubicons. As you can see, some of my 'completed' armour needs finishing off fully.

Another side project is to complete three of these DD tank skirts by Urban Constructs to allow beach and river crossings.

Treadhead week - WW2 British Armour

Over the past year I have hoarded numerous armour kits from a variety of manafacturers. This week I am going to focus on assembling them as a break from regiments of Prussians! Hopefully the air brush bought last year will also get it's first run out. Priority is to fill the Sherman and Churchill tank troops. Then the wheeled recce troop.

Kits include:

1. Churchill Tanks (1× Warlord plastic & 1x Blitzkrieg resin NA75)
2. Sherman V (2 x Warlord plastic, one a S and S dozer blade)
3. M3 Halftracks ( 2 x Warlord plastic)
4. MK II Lloyd Carrier ( 2 x Warlord resin)
5. Preying mantis ( Butler printed models)
6. Comet (Warlord Resin)
7. AEC Armoured Car (Blitzkrieg resin)
8. Staghound AA (Blizkrieg resin)
9. Humber Armoured Cars (Warlord resin)
10. Bofors AA gun (Warlord metal)
11. CMP 15cwt truck (Rubicon plastic)
12. Humber utility car (Anyscale models)

• Also there is still work to do on the existing armoured force including detailing, weathering, transfers and trying to get some consistancy in style and look.

On completion of this, I only see myself doing conversions for niche RE, REME and RA vehicles, oddities and filling various holes in the force which should be able to cover the NW Europe campaign from D Day through to the Rhine Crossing; Berlin or Bust!

Warlord Sherman with an Urban Construct mine flail kit to create a Sherman Crab. Needs weathering.

More Napoleonic Prussian Landwher...

Another regiment of Prussian Landwher rolls off the production line. This time instead of using a paint triad to paint with, these were speed painted using a base coat of grey, wash using Army Painter Strong Tone and highlights with yet more Vellejo London Grey.

The unit is mostly plastic Warlord Games Landwher with metal command and casualties. Thw inspiration for the colour scheme was a print by Knotel showing an East Prussian Landwher infantryman in grey coats with red facings and blue feldmutz.

I also note that today in history the Dutch fleet destroyed the English fleet in the Medway in 1667 under Admiral Michiel de Rutyer. I recently had the pleasure of viewing paintings of the event at the National Maritime Musuem at Greenwich, a stones throw away from where I live. The battle was decisive in Englands Naval reforms that led to the industrialisation of ship building which in part led to the Royal Navys supremacy in the following century as well as construction of defences on the Thames and the Medway to prevent a repeat event. More to follow in a different blog post on Thames fortifications.

Belated Waterloo Day

So I know it is two days late, however I was able to mark the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo appropriately with some form of remembrance as well as re-watching a few old favorites on TV to mark the event.

 In 2015 I had the privileged of visiting the Musee de l'armee in Paris. The Waterloo exhibition element is very poignant with a very sombre artifact on display, a Cuirassiers breast plate with a 9lb cannon ball hole punched through it.

British 9lb cannon with Congreve block trails from the period outside Old College at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. This photo was taken straight after my commissioning parade way back in 2001.

 Sharpe's Waterloo from 1997. It tries hard but its budget was too small and lacked the sheer scale of manpower of the actual battle, a few inaccuracies rankle but that can be forgiven for the presence ot the main character.

 Waterloo from 1970. This film is a work of art with the massive size of the cast, demonstrating the extent of the actual battle. The defeat of the Imperial Guard seems improbable in the ending but in spite of that, this film could not be remade for want of the qauntity of extras required.

War & Peace from 2017. Not Waterloo, but an excellent and accurate representation especially Austerlitz and Borodino. This production has set a bar.

Vanity Fair from 2018. This one is odd as I am yet to make it past the first episode as the style of the film despite of being set in the Napoleonic period seemed to have been modernized in a tongue in cheek fashion. One day I will watch the Waterloo section!

Armies on Parade - Napoleonic Prussians

Taking advantage of a rare sunny gap between the rain I took the opportunity of parading my Prussian Army in the garden under the sun. This has been an on and off project for the past two years. It was inspired at the 2011 Historicon with the release of the Perry plastic Prussian Infantry.

The army is based off the Waterloo campaign under FM Blucher. It is a mix of Perry, Warlord and Foundry miniatures. Still work in progress, more Landwher to paint then reservists and Cavalry. Looking for suitable flags/colours as Flagdude I believe is stopping up shop so and recommendations on suppliers would be useful.

Getting all the toys out was an opportunity to see where the gaps are. One more Landwher unit is on the work bench based off a Knotel print of East Prussians. An order has gone into messrs Perry for some more artillery and some command for the Jager stands. Fathers day gave a rare chance to do all the basing for the whole Army so thank you to the Domestic Chief of Staff (DCOS) for allowing it.

Perry Miniatures, Prussian high command

Perry Miniatures Russians as the Russian Legion followed by a battalion of Foundry Prussian infantry

Two battalions of Perry plastic Prussian infantry and a battalion of metal Foundry infantry.

Two types of Warlord plastic Landwher, the newer type is the front battalion.

Perry plastic Jagers from the Prussian infantry sprue. A shortfall of the sprue is no Jager command.

More Prussian command from Perry and the Landwher from Warlord.

Perry cannon on the left and Foundry on the right.