Steve Weston's Mexicans

Finished my first batch of 54mm Mexicans. On the painting table next are the mounted Mexicans, peasants, cowboys, 7th Cavalry and Apachees. Could take a while!

Bank Holiday sorting out

Had a day of tidying up, boxing my next projects safely so I can pull them out and work on them when I want to. It helps to be able to see where a set of figures are. I have a hell of a lot to get through now so hopefully won't be adding much other than tanks to the lead pile for a while. I seem to have a lot of books to read too. I also took possesion of a 2nd handle kindle this week and have downloaded, for free - The Red Badge of Courage and Floor Wars, the sequel to Little Wars by H.G. wells. Very content with my wargames lot at the minute.

Here's the Puma I finished today. Bought at Triples the other week.

Triples 2013

Good day out at Sheffield this afternoon. Lots of great quality demos and participation games. This year is the centenary of H.G Wells's Little Wars and that was the theme of this years show. The Funny Little Wars chaps from the yahoo group of the same name were there with their very authentic old school game, firing cotton buds from the guns to play the game.

Not many purchases for me this time, lots of mdf bases, a 28mm Puma and some of the new Perry Western Desert British. The later seeming very small for the scale but no matter, they only have to square up to the Afrika Corps once they are released.

Photos of Funny Little Wars below:

Painting technique

I got asked to show my painting technique so here it is. I did this figure in about 50 minutes, had to leave the sand to set over night before varnishing and flocking but that didnt take long. I used an earth colour inkwash on the figure and horse with an ogryn flesh wash over the skin areas. The basecoat is thinned black enamel.

Battlegroup North Day 2.

Good day again at Battlegroup North. I had a good chat with the guys running one of the other Bolt Action games and got plenty of good tips, especially for mortars. Umpired a good game with the YCWers.

More purchases from Colonel Bill: a unit of Russian Grenadiers by Foundry and a Bolt Action unit of German WW2 cavalry by my favourite Crusader miniatures.

Purchases from Battlegroup North Day 1.

Got my first unit of ACW in the form of 4 packs of Foundry. Resisted buying any AWI Foundry that I could use for generic SYW and Ayton. I did buy a box of AW Miniatures French Indian War French Infantry for Ayton 2014 etc. bargain at £20 for 20 figures. Bought a pile of old Ospreys from a 2nd hand stall at £2.50 each and a book on Gettysburg's Little Round Top.

Battle group North

A good first day at Battlegroup North. I set up a Bolt Action game and after a quiet morning we got playing with a few German soldiers, on and off table.

The British Crusader battered the stug but failed to knock it out before getting rushed by fallshirmjagers and taken out with grenades.

DICE!!!

How many dice do you need to have before you have too many?

I have just started playing quite dice heavy games and I do think it adds a bit more fun to an informal and easy to play game. I'm about to run some demo/participation games that will be dice heavy so I thought I had better stock up. Hopefully this is enough, though I can see me buying more that I like the look of. At least they're cheaper than figures.

Ayton 2013

Fantastic weekend at Ayton our local annual get together. Here are some pics from the fantastic game put on by Tim Hall. Rules were Tim's own Rally Round the Flag quick play rules for the American Civil War, plus extras!