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.

Warlord 1/56 Churchill Mk IV Kit

The Warlord Games / Italeri Churchill tank kit was on offer as part of the "Tanksgiving" deal. Not one to miss a bargain I snapped it up alongside a universal Carrier and a resin 'burlap' camouflage Cromwell since built. 

Excellent box art showing Churchills in action.

The kit is a fairly standard offering from Italeri, however it does have one bonus in that the sheer number of variants you can create is huge! For the build I opted for the cast turret MkIV.

Some of the options that can be found on the back of the box.

The kit is easy to assemble, the tracks are somewhat fiddly, but mistakes can be rectified with fitting the track guards and hull top. The instructions are easy to follow and give the indications of the variants. In all, the kit took little under thirty minutes to clean up and assemble without the need to deploy Anglo Saxon swear words. I would happily buy another to supplement my ever growing late war 28mm British Army.

Completed tank alongside a Foundry 28mm Commandp

Completed MKIV ready for painting

Looking at the layout of the sprue and fit of the kit, it looks if it can be readily converted to other variants with and additional sprue (a potential release of the future?) such as a crocodile. Earlier marks could be converted by removal of the top track guard and shaving the square side doors off and replacing with round, although I may avoid this torture and buy one of MadBobs offerings for MkI and II's. 

Hull and turret sprue showing the sheer volume of options for main armament and MKs.

Track sprue, as ever free standing tracks are ghastly to assemble. 

Hull side sprue.