French Napoleonic Artillery, more Sicily and the KV a is king 🙂

A mixed bag this week first up I have finished some Napoleonic French artillery. I bought these of my mate Steve who was having a clear out, a mixed bag of French Napoleonics, some cavalry and also these Eagle Miniatures line artillery. I hadn’t planned to paint them straight away. They needed stripping which I think I have sorted a pretty good technique now so they were cleaned up within a day or two. I quite like the reconditioning of figures so they jumped to the front of the queue.

French Line artillery

They are slightly older Eagle miniatures but a good size and have come out nicely. They have massive 12pdrs. My only criticism is the gun crews come with too many men carrying ramrods ? This aside they make a lovely battery. With this purchase I actually have too many French cannons, I’ll just have to collect more infantry I suppose ?

Next up a few more shots from Our recent Sicily holiday.

The benefit of hiring a car means we were able to maximise our time, travelling inland to the Castello de Lombardia. Perched on the top a very steep hill in a small town.

It is described in the guide book as one of the largest castles in Italy , Norman in origin but then developed extensively by future kings.

We then travelled to a small town called Piazza Armenia where there is the superbly preserved Villa Romana de Casale. This is a recognised UNESCO site and in my humble opinion lived upto the hype. The villa has been partially reconstructed to give you and idea of the scale but it is the mosaics which are famous. Every room including hallways are decorated with the most fabulous mosaics, each one unique. Here are just a couple of examples

The room above is 4 or 5 metres across.

One of the hallways

Another anti room . Apparently they think all the mosaics were down by North African artisans and craftsmen. 

Finally in a packed day we visited the ancient town of Morgantina, built around 450BC taken by the Romans but then abandoned. This is a wonderful site with so much to see.

Wonderfully preserved as it hasn’t been built over as it is in the middle of nowhere , apparently still loads to unearth gave a real sense of stepping back in time.

…and finally just back form the latest installment of our Smolensk campaign which we are playing using George’s wonderful collection.

The Russians as previously documented have taken a beating the last couple of games so this battle was critical. Here they are defending the railway station at all cost.

Time to roll out the BIG guns the KV trundled onto the table to defend the railway station.

Enough said……..

The Russians are back on the front foot, think the German tanks might have scratched the paint slightly on the KV but we can touch that up. I’m too embarrassed to give a full report so George will have to cover that. A very fun battle now I just have to work out how to get the KV into every battle ?

Thanks all for checking in, hopefully another game at the weekend and I’m close to finishing another British Napoleonic unit 

Matt 👍