Italy takes to the sky……and more Christmas loot

The over indulgence of Christmas is finally settling down and I can share some more bits from over the festive period….

Firstly and the last item completed before Christmas some Italian airforce a C.R. 42 Falco for the Regia Aeronautica. A 1/48 kit as I prefer the larger models for 28mm gaming. A great model although I’m not really a very skilled model maker. The struts being quite a challenge, I went for an early colour scheme more colourful and ok upto sicily. The camo scheme is a very rough interpretation of an 1940’s scheme if you squint it is ok. Annoyingly the kit from Italiari didn’t come with a pilot , but I found one in another kit I had waiting in the pile. I do have quite a lot of plane kits in the pile ? 

Next up we did manage to play a couple of zombie games over the holiday, the games are fairly simple with the survivors/protagonists hunting for supplies whilst the zombies / walking dead gradually increase in number as the game progresses.

We at least has some fun and laughs, for those interested in computer games I made this model specially to represent a character in our current favourite game, and yes there are wolves in the forest !

Another shot of the same game with the undead horde arriving stage left as the survivors flee for their lives !

A few of the gifts I generously received as presents 

A game I ordered for myself with a view to some ECW campaigning during 2026, I have scanned through and it is more complex than I had anticipated but the map and game kit could be used in a simpler system if required. It does have a specific solo mode so I should persevere and try and get a solo campaign running

My son gave me these for Christmas picked up in a charity shop. The full set of 100 ! A great find and packed full of information and beautiful osprey illustrations.

Now looking forward to 2026 time for a new (extension) project pondering on this as we do, and having enjoyed collecting and painting my Italians I thought I would look for alternative opponents for them. This obviously leads to Greece which I had previously rejected for the Germans as the later Greek campaign was slightly one sided. However, now I have Italians I have plumbed for Greeks in 2026.

I’m sure we all often start with an osprey book …..this is a pretty good introduction

Some great illustrations as above, the Greeks having captured Italian tankettes…👍

Then scanning on the web I found Great Escape games were offering some excellent sale prices on some of their Greek range…job done so I ordered up a mixed starter force. The benefit of the Greco/italian campaigns are they had very limited armour so I don’t really need anymore, I already have the Italian stuff. Mainly infantry for the Greeks but with some older artillery and support. The GEG figures look excellent sculpts very like crusader figures (not at all like their horrible Norwegians!) so that is the first new project for 2026. One of the benefits is I don’t really need any terrain as between Sicily and Norway I can cover most of what I need.

Finally for this last ? Post of 2025 another shortish video really for my benefit to record all the painted stuff I have managed to finish in 2025. Do of course feel free to skip this alternatively enjoy 5 mins of Mozart 🙂

Thanks as always and I will likely see you on the other side of New year 

Matt❤️