Peninsular Battle and painting update

With posting our St Mere Eglise battle to hit the 6th June I missed a quick battle from earlier last week and some painting updates.

A couple of guys who recently visited the dungeon were keen to have a go and Valour and Fortitude as a ruleset they had not played so I set up a small battle early last week. In the end I only had one visitor but we were still able to run through the battle/rules pretty easily.

Three infantry brigades each side with some limited artillery support, I left cavalry out this time to help simplify the rules

We weren’t taking it too seriously so the French just went for it, pushing across the table using some convenient fate cards allowing them to turn the British left flank.

After several turns the French had their noses in front although several of their brigades had taken quite a beating, a fun battle and good company for the morning 🙂

I’ve managed a bit more time at the painting table this past week.

First up the final Italian infantry unit, I was keen to get them finished so we can play them in the next few weeks. These are the metal warlord figures, picked up of eBay for a reasonable price, slightly smaller than their plastic counterparts, but they do add a little variety.

In the spirit of finishing things off I also had these ‘Ashigaru’ , I’m still not very familiar with Japanese troop names ? These being armed with bows. They are Warlord plastics which I picked up as a huge  (very cheap) army box, before I then amassed a load of Perry figures second hand. I thought I would at least try putting a unit together, they are not the best but if you can avoid the overly static poses they are not too bad. Also not my best painting.

Given that they are fairly pleasing to the eye ? And scale wise they fit fine with the Perry’s

Enthused I might prep up another Samurai unit this week.

That’s it for now, hopefully another couple of battles this week and a parcel on the way form Warlord games which should be arriving this afternoon 🙂

Thanks as always for checking out the blog 

Matt ♥️

More painting and Herculaneum

I’ve been fairly busy this week, with another holiday next week. Mainly though gradually improving my health. However, the painting is progressing fairly well.

First up I have finally painted my first unit of Japanese Samurai/Ashigaru, these are all Perry figures and were quicker than I expected to paint 

Steve gifted me a few extra 15mm bits recently and I have painted these up for North Africa

Some extra Sherman’s

Panzerjager and anti aircraft gun or simple paint schemes

Finally and perhaps my favourite this week a unit of French Carabiniers, Perry plastics painted in their slightly earlier 1810 uniforms 

A rare shot of the sunshine in the Lake District this afternoon.

Finally some more shots from our recent holiday as well as Pompeii of course Vesuvius in 79AD destroyed the smaller town of Herculaneum 

A shot over the preserved town as it is today, the current ground level is shown in the background and the whole of Herculaneum has been excavated below this level, buried as it was in about 8 metres of volcanic rock. Part of the difference between the two famous sites was their preservation due to the type of volcanic rock they were buried by, this means the preservation at Herculaneum was because it wasn’t impacted by volcanic ash.

The site is famous for the level of preservation with lots of wooden items and structures such as the screen above, one of the things you don’t get from other sites is perhaps just how crowded with stuff Roman houses would have been

Also plenty of preserved roadside advertising signs this one outside a shop I think

Like Pompeii lots of shops selling food 

Plenty of mosaics preserved

Herculaneum is very famous for its bath house , but sadly it is currently closed to visitors whilst they work out how to balance tourism with preservation ? The shop above was taken through the locked door 🙂

The site also has many buildings which are preserved to a second or third story and again plenty of garish decorations on show 

I won’t go through the history of excavation at the site which is in itself very interesting, but for a long time they didn’t find any bodies thinking that the majority of the occupants had perhaps escaped, more recent excavations in the area closest to the waterfront at the time found this was the final resting place of many of the occupants of the town.

Another of the well preserved interiors, as I mentioned with Pompeii I have increasing sense that the Romans would have liked Disneyland rather than elegant white marble.

Thanks as always for checking in, I’m away on holiday again next week some I’m not likely to post much 

Matt 👍

Happy New Year and a Brussel Sprout !

 When is it too late to wish people a happy new year, hopefully not the 4th January ? With the family at home for Christmas I haven’t managed any games and only limited painting time although of course I have been thinking about hobby stuff quite a bit. As the kids have now ‘flown the nest’ again and after a couple of days tidying up I have started to get back into the groove, although only a few bits are completed.

First up some Norman knights, mainly painted before Christmas but still needed quite a bit of work to complete them. Not absolutely certain what make they are chunky metal picked up secondhand at a show, lovely figures and easy to paint. I picked the lighter colour scheme as they are more likely to see action in the Mediterranean or on Crusade than in wet and muddy England. Picking these out of the lead pile I realised I have quite a few more Norman cavalry (units) to paint.

Secondly a small rebased unit of French Heavies. Picked up from a mate they only needed a little colour matching for future units. On the list for this year are two more full units of Curassiers and some Carabiniers. Not sure when I will get to these though ?

Some Christmas fun I picked up a copy of Xenos Rampant.

Turns out of course that I already have a number of potential forces from my 40k collection, this saw me tidying up this small force of Aliens (Tyranids) and I am half way through completing some Imperial Desert troops who had languished in a box for many years, these lend themselves to a fun mini campaign sometime in the near future

A new year and New project. Well it is a good time to start something new, not a spur of the moment thing I have actually been thinking about this for a while going through the challenge of deciding scales and figures etc. more of this in the future but the plan at the moment is something larger than a skirmish game. Luckily I had told my family what I wanted.

Another present this time to myself ordered off eBay ! I have been listening to James Holland’s latest book on the invasion of Italy and thinking about the use of my 15mm WW2 armies, I had convinced myself that I didn’t want to collect another set of 15mm terrain knowing that for the scale of battles I would need quite a bit. Then I made the mistake of looking on eBay and this set of terrain popped up ! It was an easy decision, this is absolutely the type of terrain I prefer simple but very flexible as it is all modular. It is slightly old school being cast from plaster but not showing any signs of damage. To be honest there is so much a few chips wouldn’t matter. As a test I have started repainting a few bits as below

These are just a couple of the components 

They stack to make multiple versions of buildings, from these couple of shots you don’t quite get the effect but when painted I will set it all up. This gives me the option to play 15mm in both Northern Europe and the Mediterranean.

Thoughts for this year, I’m not making a list as such but here are the things that are floating in my head at the moment

Expanding my 28mm Sicily battles, perhaps with Italians and paratroopers

Continuing to paint my Napoleonics

Moving the ECW armies forward

Samurai of course we watched ‘Ran’ over the Christmas break for inspiration

Moving the AWI campaign forward

Xenos rampant

Tidying up some collections and selling off some languishing Warhammer stuff

Most importantly I need to improve my health as I have been unwell far too much this year.

The weather has been dreadful over Christmas but we did manage a few shorter walks

And what of the Brussel Sprout I hear you say ?

I add this to make you chuckle or perhaps groan, my Father who is now 90 orders his food on line to get it delivered, we visited him over Christmas. In his pre Christmas food order he must have ticked the wrong box on Sainsbury’s website as rather than getting a bag of Brussels sprouts they sent him One !!!!!! For those that need it, this is perhaps a great example of the world gone mad. I can only imagine what the shop packer was thinking when he weighed the single Sprout and then printed and labelled it up 🤯

Thanks as always for checking by, let’s all hope for a peaceful, healthy and productive New Year with lots of Brussel Sprouts they aren’t just for Christmas !

Matt