Bruges Tower

What it's already October?? My gosh how time just flies! I've been painting, but just not fast enough it would appear. I have about three units on my desk in various stages of completion so I will have some more material soon.

This piece is a Hovel 25mm Bruges Tower. They say it's 25mm, but I think it's more between 20mm and 25mm. I love Hovel terrain for it's quaintness, style and feel of the them in spite of the sculpts not being the best and the tremendous amount of clean up needed on them.

I wish I could paint faster as there are so many things I want to do!!:-(

Photobucket is still all screwed up! Once you have sized a pic you can't even change it any more! They used to be great, but their new system is a colossal failure! I'm so frustrated with them! I hope they go back to their old system or at least try and fix the new one at the very least.

Thanks for viewing.:-)

Miniature Company- Hovels

Flags of War a kind gesture

Hi folks if you remember I liked Flags of War ECW flags which I found very lovely, but too small for me. Ian from Flags of War got wind of this and since he is resizing his ECW and TYW range to a larger sized flag has very kindly offered to replace my flags free of charge which I of course duly accepted with gratitude!

Ian makes flags that he thinks best fits a period in size and so I'm sure he will happily give you the size of flag of any range he offers to help you decide if it's right for you. The graphics are beautiful that much I'm positive you will be happy with!

I'm pretty darn happy as I have GMB and Flags of War to cover most things I need which is great as it's a pain making your own!

Montrose Irish Brigade

This is part of a project I've started with a friend based around the Scottish campaigns in the English Civil War. I've decided to build the forces of that wily commander Montrose and my friend is building the Covenanter's.

My Montrose(ish) army isn't an attempt to exactly replicate what the forces of Montrose looked like, but rather a melding of Scottish and English together so I can use it as both a Scottish Royalist army and a Northern English Royalist army. I like the history of Montrose and Rupert so I'd like to use it for both. Basically it will be my own impression with quite a few liberties taken. Hopefully the end result will still be convincing enough to not totally offend the purists out there.

I'm starting off with a regiment from the rock hard Irish brigade in which I mixed Bicorne's Irish and English together which gives them a mixed and slightly ragged appearance (except the officers) which I feel they probably looked something like that. The Irish were noted for using a half pike, but I prefer the full pike and so went with that. They also wore a greyish top and white leggings(many did any ways) of which I included in the mix, but I changed the top to mostly green for two reasons. The first is I'll have plenty of grey to do when I do the regular Scot units and well......they are Irish and green just darn well belongs!:-)

The figures are from Bicorne and the English figures are simply superb(best ECW around IMHO) and the Irish figures are pretty good too if not quite as good as the English figures. I painted them using AP with highlights added. The Flag is from Flags of War and while it looks wonderful it's a little small for me, however I heard he's now making them bigger and so I probably replace it with a bigger one. Once again I was painting in comfort zone of earth colours so I had a lot of fun painting the figures and they are large and the detail raised just added to the fun.

I also found out it's pretty difficult photographing such a wide regiment . They are mounted on 3 bases 80mm x 60mm each giving a total of 240mm wide. I hope I succeeded in getting a clear enough view. Click on the pics for larger photo's.

I'll probably do my second Irish regiment next if I don't get distracted first. The rules we have in mind are Black Powder's Pike and Shotte.

Yet another time for me to complain about the new and improved worthless photobucket. Why did they try to fix something that wasn't broke!!

God save the king!
Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company-Bicorne Miniatures

Francis De Chevert

This model is from Front Rank and is Francis De Chevert. When not playing himself I also use him as standard brigade general figure for my French army.

Like all front rank figures the miniature was an absolute joy to paint and has wonderful detail in the model. A special note going to the horse which I believe is finest I've ever had the pleasure to paint. If the other current Front Rank horses are as good as this I'll need to buy some cavalry of which I'm normally not that keen on doing!

Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company-Front Rank

Le Royal - Artillerie

Now for some artillery to my FIW/SYW French army in form a 12 pounder Le Royal - Artillerie to give some heavy supporting punch to the army. The figures are from the superb front rank SYW range and were an absolute pleasure to paint and I highly recommend them.

I had an option between a red or blue carriage for the cannon and decided on blue carriage as I like contrast, but I may try a red one out sometime too.

Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Range- Front Rank

Le Regiment de Royal- Roussillon

Up now is my 2nd FIW/SYW French regiment Le Regiment de Royal-Roussillon for my wargames project with Mike.

The figures are from Redoubt and the Flags are the lovely GMB designs. My opinion on the figures are mixed in that I like the troopers, but the command is not as good . The clean up on these was also pretty awful as I had to cut and file a lot which is my least favourite part of the hobby. I'm not sure why this is the case as Redoubts Indians and ACW I own (and like very much indeed) don't seem to have too much flash. That said, what I do like about these figures quite a bit is the posing which I think really looks the part.

Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company-Redoubt

20 Questions posed by Fran & Ray to ask yourself

Yep they snagged me like many others! The battling gents Ray and Fran came up with this questionnaire that I thought was very interesting so I thought I would join in.


1. Favourite Wargaming period and why?

That would be the American Civil War as the period has fascinated me since I was kid of 10 when I picked up the book Bruce Catton'sThe Civil War and started looking at those fantastic figure maps in it from the shelf of my Dads friend who was a history teacher.



2. Next period, money no object?

It's not so much money as it is time to do what I want is the real issue. My drawers of unpainted
figures can attest to that! So if I could suspend time and completely paint my entire ACW collection then that would be great!

3. Favourite 5 films?
This is HARD!
In no particular order:
-The last of the Mohicans




-The usual suspects

-The Shawshank Redemption

-Goodfellas

-Blazing Saddles


4. Favourite 5 TV series?

-Ken Burns The American Civil War(Probably my favourite of anything ever put on film)

 -Band Of Brothers

-Shogun

-FireFly

-Game Of Thrones

5. Favourite book and author?


Book: Shogun by James Clavell




Series: Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell




6. Greatest General? Can’t count yourself!!


Robert E. Lee
I'm not sure he is the greatest general in history (with Hannibal probably taking that title), but Lee is my favourite. He was indeed a great general who fought a number of years successfully winning most of his battles outnumbered, out supplied in terms of quality rations, equipment and quantity. By and large "Bobby Lee" was respected on both sides and could be argued if not the greatest commander in history, then at least a contender for Americas greatest.

7. Favourite Wargames rules?
Tough one as I like several, but currently I'd have to say
Black Powder and Hail Caesar are proving very good indeed! Hats off to Rick and the gang!



8. Favourite Sport and team?

When I was able to play I enjoyed American Football and following the Vikings for a number of years until switching my viewing to Mixed Martial Arts competitions in particular UFC when that started up.





9. If you had a only use once time machine, when and where would you go?

Liked Rays lotto pick idea or perhaps buy large shares of Microsoft before they went big, but if to witness a historical event or place in time then I would like to see the Merrimac and Monitor battle it out from the shore.



10. Last meal on Death Row?

American made Pizza with a whopper, fries and diet coke.


11. Fantasy relationship and why?

For the pure wow factor Scarlett Johannson who reminds me of a WWII Pin up.

12. If your life were a movie, who would play you?

James Dean



except you would need to add about 40+pounds and double chin to be more accurate, but hey it's my darn film choice! I do at least still got the hair!


13. Favourite Comic Superhero?
Batman was close, but my favourite is the Green Machine himself the HULK which is the ultimate a** kicker if there ever was one!

"You won't like me when I'm angry!"

14. Favourite Military quote?


Soldier:"Sir we are surrounded!"

Smith:"Excellent we can attack in any direction!"

General Oliver P. Smith at the battle of Chosin Reservoir in the Korean war.

15. Historical destination to visit?
Not really one place but several at once. I would like to rent a mobile home and spend a Summer touring American Civil War battlefields.



16. Biggest Wargaming regret?
I regret that I'm unable to stay focused on one project at a time so I'm always in a state of regret I suppose. Also, not so much a wargaming thing, but one thing I really regret is not keeping some of my toys and comics books I had as kid, because I would be friggin rich by now!!



And yes I had all those at one time plus a heck of a lot more!


17. Favourite Fantasy job?
ACW Battlefield tour guide


18. Favourite Song Top 5?
I'd say late 60's and 70's classic rock is my favourite and naming 5 would be impossible for me, but to name a few:

-"More then a feeling"-Boston

-"Old Time Rock and Roll"- Bob Seger

-"Angie"-Rolling Stones

-Suspicious Minds-Elvis

-"Take it easy"-The Eagles



19. Favourite Wargaming Moment?
I've had a lot of moments I've really enjoyed, but not one thought jumps out in my head enough that I would call my favourite just yet.


20. The miserable Git question, what upsets you?
-Tricky one here as I don't want to upset folks with different politics so I'll steer away from that, as I have quite a bit under that topic and I could get ugly and I do mean ugly if I start.
-Unanswered or extremely delayed e-mail responses.
-Flash and bad mould lines on my figures(I hate cleaning figures and even more so when I have to do more work).
-Wishing I could paint quite a bit faster while still maintaining a standard I like.
-That there is too few hours in a day to do what I want.
-That I can't seem to motivate myself to excise and eat better like I should(wipes cookie crumbs from his mouth while typing).
-High heat combined with humidity.
-Traffic jams.
-Overly crowded places(wargaming events not as much for some reason):-)
-Seeing people doing the most moronic thing I can think of which is texting while driving at the same time( knock it off if you do it please!)
- filling in blog CAPTCHA type ins proving I'm not a robot.
-The usual marketers trying to sell you stuff.
-Always more of course