Current wip

Work is continuing to play havoc with my painting schedule. Paiting time during the week has all but stopped and next weekend I will be away on business in Scotland. The following weekend is Easter and from then I will be on holiday for 2 weeks. The Kiwi and I are going to Boston followed by a few days in South Carolina - AWI heaven. Apparently the Kiwi has always wanted to visit Boston; even after I'd spent about an hour telling her about the beginnings of the Revolution she was still keen to go there....My particular aim is to take plenty of photos of period buildings, as reference for those excellent chaps at Tablescape. I see there's a tavern at Lexington (or is it Concord?), a model of which might look good on a wargames table.

I have some photos of the soon-to-be-released Eureka Continental artillery to post next week, but here are a couple of (not particularly good) photos of what's on the desk. In the last week of February I changed my mind about having a bash at another Saratoga regiment. I didn't manage to finish it before the end of the month, but the 62nd Foot (above) is now all ready for the final stages of basing. Proper pics might be up by the end of the next week. When I visited Perry HQ at Christmas I was particularly taken with Alan's 24th Foot that also comprises these charging figures; Dave Woodward had done a fantastic job on their faces, giving them proper, and not a little bit scary, grimaces. Below are two pictures of my current regiment, the 84th Foot or "Royal Highland Emigrants". I felt like painting some highlanders again as my painting style has changed a bit since I last painted some (the two battlions of the 71st back in 2006). The immediate inspiration came from the Eutaw Springs scenario in the new "British Grenadier!", which requires a battalion of the 84th; I think also we have a reader who had an ancestor in the regiment? Whilst I was painting the first batch I posted a step-by-step on painting the tartan plaid on the WD3 forum, which may be of interest: see it here.

As a couple of readers have noticed, the current issue of "Battlegames" magazine has some photos of my collection. Henry Hyde asked me to send him some pics of the Battle of Guilford Courthouse to accompany an article by Bob Barnetson and his team which assessed various AWI rulesets. Unfortunately "British Grenadier!" came in for some sharp criticism (I am penning a very short rebuttal to go in the next issue), but the article is a good read. If you haven't heard of "Battlegames" have a look here; it's a truly excellent publication, which seems to have acquired the (fully deserved) tag as "the thinking man's wargames magazine". Finally, look out also for the next "Touching History" publication, due next month, in which Paul Darnell will tell us how to make terrain features and buildings for the AWI, F&IW and ACW. A few weeks ago I packed my collection into the car and drove off to spend a fun morning with Paul and his camera at his former pad near Chelmsford. More on that anon...