Studio Space Sorted!!

After a day of wresting with boxes, sorting through them and attempting to follow the apparently simple Ikea instructions (far from easy in the case of the bed!) I managed in between bouts of hard toil to find the time to set up my new studio, well sort of..... it lacks paints and brushes but will soon be festooned in Foundry, Vallejo and Andrea etc hues!

I mean't to take a pic but it was ten before I got the bed finished and to be honest I wimped out and went racing to my folks for the night!

I'll try to take a pic or two tomorrow in an attempt to show off just how much space I have now. I'm not going to make the common mistake of assuming that I have too much sace as we all know what a slippery slope that can be :>)

Darrell.

Clubbing it! Cold War Commander

I had my first taste of Cold War Commander Thursday gone, which despite the game bringing me to the realisation that I know next to nothing about late 20th Century tactics I really enjoyed. It's a steep learning curve for me and I hope to do a lot better than the paltry advance of the Russians and Afghan Regulars in the face of determined resistance from the Mujahedin.

My progress was painfully slow and resulted in the two flanking forces of Afghan Regulars beong ambushed and seriously pinned!

Here's some pics of the game that relate my tactical naivety rather nicely! I hope to do a better job next week!

Bye for now.

Clubbing it!! A Certain Famous Condottiere

Yes, that's plural and not singular. If you have an interest in Late Medieval warfare you really ought to be able to tell from the armours and the heraldry on display who the 'mystery' Condottiere is(?). As usual there are no prizes other than the fame and glory pertaining to leaving a comment on this blog!

The miniatures are all from the collection of Conrad Carins and are in 28mm. I wasn't party to the game but I believe they were using the WAB V 1.5 Armies of Chivalry lists and rules.

Bye for now.

Hastings Demo (Salute 2016; Sneak Peeks) Part 3

More pics of the newly based mini's. This time it's stand three. When it is complete there will be a total of four Ceorl stands acting as Fyrd with four stands of Thegns and /or Huscarls to the fore of the unit.

The unit needs basing as do the other bases in my former post which I'll probably do in batches of fours to save a bit of time. I should have pics of the fourth base either tomorrow or the next day. Next time it's the turn of the 'command' stand.

Bye for now

Border Reiver & Partizan Wargames

Just a quick note to say that I'll be attending Border Reiver Wargames Show at Gateshead International Stadium and Partizan, the last to be held at Kelham Hall so I may as well go just to be a part of the history- and many other 28mm tall other reasons!

The Gateshead show is very local so it won't be much of a hardship to get there and have a look around. i suspect that many of the traders that I'm interested in will be at Partizan anyway so I'll be saving my pennies for that show and just running around, camera in hand taking snaps of the games at Border Reiver.

I'm going to be taking part in a demo game at Partizan and judging by the standard of the painting that will be on display I think it should give any game at Partizan a run for their money. It's still all very "hush hush" and all will be revealed on the day. Mercifully I didn't have to paint anything- too much to do for the Hastings Game at Salute and another game that's planned for Partizan at the new venue next year (again, all very "hush hush" ;>)

Bye for now,

Thoughts on Hastings; Late Arrivals.

In the Osprey Campaign, Hastings 1066 it is suggested that there may have been late arrivals as more Anglo-Danes/Saxons made their way to the army of  Harold Godwinson. I'm taking a great leap of faith by making the assumption that the late arrivals would have more of a cross section of the troop types already on the scene of the fighting. in other words Fryd (predominantly Thegns?), Lesser Fyrd (Levies?) and Huscarls,not to mention the odd Ealdorman.

I will probably model these units (given enough time!) as at least in my eyes, it seems very likely that the hastily arrayed army would have hurried to the scene Senlac (to give it it's later Norman name) hill and thus a steady stream of late arrivals may just have been the case. in any event, with the rules for the demo game undecided, it will at least stiffen the Shieldwall and make the game last!

I'be be very interested in hearing from anyone who has any idea on the subject. Just post below and if you can muster a link and/or of a literary source too that would be just dandy :>)

Bye for now.

Hastings Demo (Salute 2016; Sneak Peeks) Part 2

These pics are just a quick record of what I've been up to of late.

There's are a couple of bases of Ceorls and a 'Sneak Peek' of the Harold Godwinson Battle Line Base.

I've got to add sand and indeed filler to most the bases; I'm waiting until I've found my nice mix of various grades of sand which is in my new garage (somewhere!?) and the banner on the Godwinson stand need tidying up and the edges need painting.

Lesser Fyrd Base 1:

Lesser Fyrd Base 2:

Harold Godwinson Battle Line Command Base:

See if any of you can spot the (very awkward and somewhat embarrassing) mistake?

Bye for now.

Anglo Saxon Warfare; Excellent Online Artilcle

If you have any interest in Early Medieval Warfare please read the following article from the Historian on the Edge Blog:

HERE!

Bye for now

Harold Rex Interfectus Est

New title image to go with the Hastings theme of the demo game at Salute 2016:

Bye for now

Saxon Miniatures

I just want to quickly mention Saxon Miniatures from who I ordered their Saxon Huscarl set  on Sunday evening and was surprised to have them delivered two days later! Brilliant service and very prompt.

Impressed?

Yes I am.

I think that it's Colin Patten who has done the sculpting though I cold be getting the brothers confused? If anyone knows please drop me a line as I'd like to know. They are similar to the mid 'season' sculpts from Gripping Beast so I'm pretty sure that they are by one of the brothers. Very impressive dynamic sculpts they are too.

I'm hoping that they will do some Normans- this may just be a possibility as there are some El Cid period mini's available.

As the ranges stand thus far there are, Arthurians (Arthurian British Armoured Infantry & Winter King Arthurian Warlords), El Cid (Ben Yusef Black Guard & Castillian Armoured Infantry), Saxons (Saxon Huscarls & Saxon Warlords) and Vikings (Viking Warlords & Viking Hirdmen). They're all pretty damn good too.

Bye for now.

Battle of Hastings Demo; Salute 2016 Part 1

Hi,

I haven't posted up anything for the Hastings demo as of yet and seem to be getting rather excited about the whole thing I thought I'd post up some WIP's of the first two stands as I'm waiting for the Humbrol Gloss to dry before matting down again .

I have a load of Normans that will need re-basing so all the Norman Cavalry is taken care of. I'm currently waiting for delivery of Soldiers of God, from Perry Miniatures from what I've gathered, uses infantry units of 18 which I can hopefully scale up if needs be to much larger units. We'll see. The rules will no doubt come in very handy for the First Crusades another interest of mine anyway.

I've still got a few options that I'd like to try out rules wise so time will tell.

The first set of pics are WIP's of Harold Godwinson's Command Base which will stand behind the main battle line of the Anglo Danes indicating clearly his place in the English army. I'll be doing similar stands for the English commanders of which there I will illustrate and talk a bit about in later posts.

There's still quite a lot of work to be done on this base such as adding his bannermen and modelling the rocks. This is done by adding 'off' Greystuff and pressing in bits of bark and finally sculpting with a metal sculpting tool. I have limited the modelling of the rock where Harold stands to just around the front of his feet as I will be adding other mini's very soon.

In the event that anyone is wondering where the mini representing Harold comes from, it was a freebie from Gripping Beast that was handed out to each player at the 1066 and All That WAB Event that took place at WHW many a moon ago.

The mini's below are WIP's of three mini's available from Gripping Beast sculpted by the hands of Bill Thornhill of Footsore Miniatures (I think!). If not I do apologise. They will be on a base that represents Harold and some of his Huscarls that will be in the battle line.

Next up will be pics of the completed Battle Line base- the actual Command Base will take a little longer as I'm not certain of what mini's will be accompanying Harold at this stage, though I do have some ideas :>)

Bye for now.

Wargamer Bloggers Quarterly: Free Wargame Bloggers Quarterly Volume 2 Issue 1‏ Released

A must have:

Available HERE:

Bye for now.

All Sold!

Got the following up for grabs:

1 x Salute 2014 Freebie- £5.

1 x Warlord Bolt Action Freebie-£4.

Warlord Napoleon Zulu War BP Freebie- £3.

Perry Miniatures Monty and Aid- £6.

Gripping Beast Army Thematic Byzantine General and Army Standard Bearer:

Thematic Byzantine Emperor and Lacket- £2.

Notice!

More Bloody Baron's tomorrow- great laugh and not too far from the bone rules wise when it comes to The Cousins War!!

Can't wait.... watch this space!

Last weeks game:

All Sold! Except the Pegasus!!

I've got a few mini's that I'd like to sell-

Wargames Foundry 1A- £1.

Wargames Foundry 1B- £1

GW Metal Pegasus- £6.

Salute 2014 Freebie- £5.

Warlord Freebie (?)- £3.00

Buyer Pays Postage- I'll try to fit the smaller mini's into a First Class or Second Class (your choice) envelope within the UK

Will be happy with Paypal but please pay as a gift- I'm an honest man and you will receive your mini!

If you're interested please contact me via my e-mail address below:

darrell.hindley@googlemail.com

Pics are below:

GW Metal Pegasus- £6.

Wargames Foundry 1A- £1

Wargames Foundry 1B- £1

Salute 2014 Freebie- £5

Warlord Freebie (?)- £3.00

Bye for now.