20 figures. Painted December 2020. Flag by Adolfo Ramos.
Monday 15 May 2023
Navarre Infantry - 1st battalion
Wednesday 10 May 2023
Valencian volunteers - 2nd battalion
This is the counterpart to the other unit of Valencians that I posted on Tuesday. A "brigade" photo is below. There's no much else to say that wasn't in my earlier post. The jackets and berets were painted using the Foundry "Deep Blue 20" palette. I like the poses of these figures, particularly the command figures (there's an excellent drummer with a bandaged head in the second row). There's lots more FCW stuff coming up - more Carlist infantry, then Isabelino high command and cavalry. Once that's all posted, I'll get up to date with the Paraguayan War. After that, it will probably be time for some Frostgrave and 7-TV!
20 figures. Painted November - December 2020. Flag by Adolfo Ramos.
Tuesday 9 May 2023
Valencian volunteers - 1st battalion
Cairns states that there were seven battalions in the Army of the Centre and some of these were dressed in trousers and greatcoats, so much like other Carlist troops. He also states that "some replaced trousers with the traditional zaraguell, a white kilt word by the inhabitants of the countryside around Valencia". Esposito states that the first four battalions had dark blue greatcoats and white trousers, whereas the remainder had blue jackets and wore elements of civilian clothing, like the Zaraguell. So that's what we have here. I probably should have mixed up the waistcoat colours a bit more - they are mainly brown, albeit different shades of brown, drab and khaki. The flag is a "black banner", which were known to have been used by the Army of the Centre. Apparently these troops were not particularly reliable, being more suited to hit-and-run skirmishing than stand-up engagement.
20 figures. Painted October-November 2020. Flag from Alberto Ramos (I think).
Sunday 23 April 2023
Salute 2023
This blog has had more false starts than the Grand National, but this time it really is returning. I was going to post some stuff this week, but thought it would be better to wait until after Salute, because that always begets a long post that will bury anything posted earlier. A few things have happened which have re-focused me on the historical hobby, although recently I've also been having a lot of fun painting figures for the 7-TV game systems. Painting some AWI for a friend before Christmas helped the historical bug return, and also there's now a chance of some regular gaming.
Anyway, Salute. It was good to be back, and I had no idea that Salute and I have something in common - we both turned 50 in April this year. I arrived at 10.20am and made the mistake of alighting the DLR at the stop after Custom House - yes, that next stop was closer to the show entrance, but it wasn't closer to the end of the queue, which I reached by walking almost the entire length of the Excel Centre. That said, whilst the queue did look horrific (and I heard an Excel steward express concern to the Warlords on that point), it moved reasonably quickly.
Immediate thoughts:
Hornchurch Wargames Club's "Ntombi River" - 28mm Zulu Wars. I liked how the colours of the terrain immediately created a sense of place:
London Wargames Guild had a "Cold Doings in London" 28mm skirmish game. I wasn't quite sure what was going on here, to be honest; neither did the players, from the sound of it! Magnificent terrain, though.
The Lardies had a number of games, including a trio of WW2 stunners (one of which was the Arnhem game they recently took to Holland):
Also in the "Lard Zone" was Dave Brown with a 15mm Napoleonic game using his "General d'Armee" rules:
Crooked Dice has a couple of participation games of 7-TV going, including this one with some marvellous terrain:
Jon and Diane Sutherland's Battle of Leuctra:
15mm WW2 action - Carentan from Retired Wargamers Reloaded:
Wyre Forest Wargames had an "imaginations" game in 6mm, featuring figures painting by a number of people during Lockdown. The game set up and figures are being sold for charity:
Warlord Games had their new ECW "epic" scale figures on the table:
Secondly, they had a couple of WW2 games based around old Airfix models such as the gun emplacement and pontoon bridge:
Nigel Emsen had a 1/72 scale ACW game using the "Muskets & Springfields" rules:
Caseshot Publishing had the Battle of Castiglione, 1796, in 15mm:
I wasn't sure who was responsible for this impressive ACW ironclads game:
An amazing "Battle of Fallujah" from Maidstone Wargames Society:
This looked like Republican Romans v Carthaginians, but I didn't catch whose game it was:
Two of the many small-scale fantasy skirmish games:
The Battle of Ferozaphur by Crawley Wargames Club, First Sikh War action in 15mm:
A SYW games from Ardhammer Group, using 30mm "flats":
1/72 Wargames' "Kaiserschlacht 1918" game:
All Hell Let Loose had "The Glosters Last Stand" in 6mm. The figures were quite difficult to spot:
Cornwall Wargames Association had this game using the Mark Copplestone "Little Soldiers" range:
The guys from Cornwall also had a large "Blood and Plunder" game:
Another good-looking WW2 game, but I didn't catch who was doing it. Maybe the Anschluss Publishing Eastern Front game?:
The Continental Wars Society had a Franco-Prussian War games using the latest Perry figures:
Newbury and Reading Wargames Society had a "Banzai - Seventeen Thousand Samurai" game:
An impressive "Antigonus at Bay, Ipsus 301 BC" game was courtesy of To the Strongest:
The Old Guard had Austerlitz in 25mm, with stunningly-painted figures:
Last, but not least...Warhammer 40K: