PBI in Tuckton

The 15mm WW2 itch gets well and truly scratched at Stab in sunny (almost) Tuckton. A small but perfectly formed Japanese army bought on eBay and tarted up takes the stage against Russians, Americans and some more Japanese in 3 PBI battles

See how the boys do in the world of Girls und Panzer...

There Be Trophies !

Just finished off the trophies for this weekends Southern League FoG:R competition - using some spare figures and trees, and one of the Empress Miniatures Naseby Battlefield Trust Special Figures (£1 from every sale goes to the trust) This chap is the "Cromwell" figure.

Empress Miniatures Cromwell

A Redoubt Miniatures infantryman who came with 2 officers on foot, who are now Great Commanders for my 15mm armies.

No idea where this chap is from I'm afraid !

For added interest I include on each base a replica English Civil War era coin - another late night eBay purchase from Warstore Flags webstore along with the bases from JP Designs.

I'm quite pleased with them - let's hope there are some worthy winners!

A new desk lamp!

My old trusty Ikea lamp finally gave up the ghost about a week ago, with the lampshade bit basically falling off the arm as the heat of the bulb over the best part of the last decade had caused the metal to crumble!

So, a search on Amazon drew me to a lamp with a proper bulb (rather than a tiny, hot halogen one) .. which in turn allowed me to go for a daylight bulb as well. And here is the result

This the the Lloytron L1120WH - Swing Arm Hobby/Desk Lamp in White, only £26 from a seller on Amazon and delivered in a couple of days. Unlike my old lamp it comes with both a big heavy base, and also a screw-on clip thingy which I've ended up using here to fasten it to the edge of my desk, making some extra desktop space in the process. 

I then also picked up a Ecozone Biobulb, Energy-Saving Daylight Bulb, Screw Cap E27, This is a very bright 25W modern eco bulb, which is equivalent to 100w but is not as hot ! The clever bit is that it is a full spectrum daylight white bulb, so gives a very good "daylight" effect for painting - the shot above was using the "daylight" setting on the white balance on my camera. So in future you may well be seeing more pictures with natural colours...

This is a Forged in Battle Tiger I  that has been waiting to be finished since the Newbury show last year..

One of a set of three - photographed in "daylight"

And these are 2 bases of rather exuberantly painted XVII Century carbine armed cavalry from Essex, probably destined to join the "I already have too many to ever field" roster of horse as the 2 Elite bases in my always not quite successful enough Louis XIV French army.

Sunday afternoon...

The end of the saga of the Pirates doesn't mean that painting has stopped. This weekend I've been doing some finishing off, and a bit of upgrading.

First up are the Scots Highland infantry - a mix of Minifigs, Essex and Peter Pig figures to give me 2 x 8 bases of Highlanders for the upcoming Central London round of the Southern League. Here the chaps are, half Army-Painter'ed (the Dark Tone one, which is quite black - good for the grey coats they often wear) and half yet to be varnished.

I also then got tempted to "upgrade" a load of Medieval spearmen by adding a wash of Dark Tone on some fairly well travelled figures - these are mostly a Mirliton army I won at the Worlds in Rome almost a decade ago. There are also three Forged in Battle Tiger I's, and a handful of other spearmen and crossbowmen from my Teutonic army, which I've been toying with inking for several years. Still haven't done the knights though - but no hurry as they are almost unusable as an army in FoGAM

There are even 2 bases of XVII Century French horse who sneak into the bottom left of the photo. Just waiting for them to dry so I can spray varnish them in Dullcote