This Old Black House

At Hotlead I bought a box of lovely poured resin Hudson & Allen early and high medieval buildings from an estate sale. 

As purchased there's a couple of smaller buildings not pictured 

The three stone "dark ages/highland" buildings were what I really wanted because I've always fancied doing some Picts to fight my 3rd century Romans, especially now that there are a couple of plastic options to build a Pictish warband with. The Medieval buildings were a nice extra and worth paying a few more dollarbucks for the lot.

As you can see my friend had painted them rather unimaginatively without much in the way of shading or depth or highlights. As you can see above, the roofs on two of the Pictish houses were a solid dark green, the same green he painted the grassy bits on the integral bases with. And the third with the sand roof is just well.... ummm. Let's just leave it at that.

So everything got a nice coat of burnt umber ink and then I started drybrushing. Couple of shades of grey on the stone. Couple of shades of green on the sod roofs and the grassy bits of the bases.

After fretting over how to paint the sod roofs I said "Sod it!" and decided to just use the same flock that I would put on the ground.

 This took a couple of nights to accomplish. And then after shaking off the excess I went over the bare patches, which were sculpted to look like old roof in need of refurbishment, with watered down burnt umber.

With out any Picts yet, some of my Romans are checking the village out.

And the Quar like them too. I think these will be nice for any Quar living in the rugged mountainous regions of Alwyd.

Rohirrim/Gothic Chieftain

The next unit of Gripping Beast Gothic cavalry has trotted out of the flocking paddock. I liked the leader waving the sword so much I decided that this group would be my army commander/Gothic Chieftain/Rohirrim Lord with his comitatus. I decided that to mark them out as extra spffy they'd all get grey horses.

I know JRRT doesn't mention draco standards in the books, but they are a) cool and b) pretty common with ancient central European cavalry heavy armies, so I think the Professor would be OK with them. So very appropriate for my Chieftain when he's a Goth fighting the Romans, and why not when he's Adhelbert, Lord of the North Downs! defending the Northern marches of Rohan from marauding orcs. He missed Theoden's muster to march to the Pelennor Fields and instead fought alongside the Ents and Elves from Lothlorien at the Battle of the Entwash.

Renewed Normans!

The Norman Reinforcements and Renovation project has gone faster and easier than anticipated. I worried that I would fnd myself come mid-November, surrounded by debris and scattered figures, filled with self-loathing and despair as the massive rebasing bogged down.

But since my last post I bashed on, finished the final two batches of cavalry and then started sorting the cavalry into new squadrons, trying to mix shield colours and mixing new figures in with the older figures where I could.

Removing the old bases made from heavy card (I did find one still based on a piece of balsa wood which I haven't done in 30 years I think!) proved easy. So after they were all glued down I started rebasing the infantry. All the infantry. So many infantry....

The mostly Old Glory infantry have the usual weird discordant mix of poses. Fellows swinging two-handed axes in with fellows standing with spears. So I took the opportunity to regroup figures into more active posed units and less active unts. Lion Rampant has an "Expert Foot Sergeant" (or "Offensive Heavy Foot" in Dragon Rampant) upgrade who have a better attack value. So now I can deploy two 12 figure units of chaps swinging axes and hacking with swords who can be easily distinguished as "Expert/Offensive" from the chaps standing around leaning on their spears.

Waking up with a sore throat on Friday, and with new Covid Protocals at work, I called in sick and used my sick day very productively to smash on with The Great Rebasing and got all the bases painted brown and flocked.

I have found myself short a few kite shields to finish one command group and a couple of characters, so that squadron is behind in the rebasing and flocking scheme. But Pasha Dan has investigated his spare parts inventory and has some for me when next he passes this way.

So the final tally is:

• 3x squadrons of unarmoured mounted Yoemen
• 9x squadrons of armoured knights/sergeants
• 6x mounted characters
• 3x 12 figure companies of yoemen
• 6x 12 figure companies of foot sergeants
• 3x 12 figure companies of crossbowmen
• 1x 6 figure unit of Bidowers with crossbows

I also rebased my scruffy, ugly, second hand and highly notorious mercenary unit The Black Company while I was at it. They've been fighting for the Necromancer in Middle Earth a lot lately. But they've been sorted into

• 1x squadron of heavy cavalry
• 2x characters
• 2x 12 figure companies of heavy infantry/sergeants
• 1x 12 figure company of offensive heavy infantry/expert sergeants

They've been looking for some skirmishers for several decades. When they're in Middle Earth they just employ goblins, but that's not really an option in Normandy or Aquitaine is it? I may just need to buy the Gripping Beast Dark Age archer set. My Anglo-Normans and Goths/Rohirrim could do with run of the mill, bog standard archers anyway. Until then my super busy Ral Partha archers will do yoeman service.

While sorting everyone into regular stands I culled out a nice little handful of figures that I might add a few others to as I find them and make a small 12 figure "castle garrison unit" with a mix of knights, sergeants, crossbows and archers.

I think I shall clear off the table reward myself with a battle! Watch this space.

September SitRep

Been plugging away at a few things in my off time. Work has picked up and all the fall chores like cleaning up the garage naturally press upon me.

Also Cadets has started up, but Covid and Social Distancing has complicated that, so there's Zoom meetings and virtual lessons on Google Classroom and training schedules put in disarray to take me away from painting.

But I have been bashing away at the Norman cavalry renovation and am within a pip of finishing them! At least the painting. Then all 72 need to be based or rebased. Plus the infantry. Then they can go loot the village and set fire to the church, or something. 

Off with the old shields! 

On with the new!

So many bases!

I have also been cleaning up and priming my 1/600 scale aircraft and trying to research IJN aviation  colour schemes. It seems the Japanese weren't very precise in their colour regulations. Of course very few examples survived the war so it's hard to tell. Plus sitting on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier exposed to sun and salt water weathers the paint considerably.

L-R Me110, He111, Me109

Mosquito, Spitfire, Hurricane 

Taking advantage of the last good evenings. RAF and Luftwaffe getting primed

Avenger, Dauntless, Wildcat, Hellcat 

Teensy weensy landing gear to glue on teenie tiny Vals. So glad I didn't get any Stukas! 

Betty, Kate, Val and Zero 

And just to keep another plate spinning I've read two books on Afghanistan:

Operation Medusa was a good strategic overview. Fraser was certainly highly complimenatry of everyone he worked with during the lead up to and execution of the battle, from allied commanders down to the squaddies in his Close Protection Detail. The chapter headings featured a lot of quotes from "Mother" his Brigade HQ Sergeant who was in Tactical command of his Tac HQ when it rolled out several times a week. More detail about the tactical aspects of C Company's ambush or B Company's push in from the north would have been welcome, but I suppose that is out of the scope of the book. General Fraser's worry about losing access to all the allied air assets before he could conclude the battle and destroy the Taliban shaped some key decisions. He does also point out that TF31s actions on the southern flank as detailed in Lions of Kandahar were pretty key in winning the battle. Still an interesting read. 

Combat Mission Kandahar was also interesting for the soldier's eye view gritty detail. There is information on a few engagements. The chapter covering the Recce Squadron for instance told me that minimum patrol size was 3 vehicles and the sensor operators provided the dismounts as required. I had a third Coyote in the lead pile. A metal and resin kit from S&S Models which I had vague plans to add a sensor mast to, but I decided to just paint it up. A couple of large scale ambushes were also detailed, including one on a large vehicle convoy, and another featuring Canadian advisors and an ANA company. Both  could make for an interesting solo game at least.

Another piece off the lead pile!