Tiny Romans

   I started a test 2mm project with 3 units back in 2021 but didn't get any further than the 2 bases of infantry and a bit of scenery, then at Salute one year * I went nuts and bought enough to do two sizable armies for the Late Republican Romans and Gauls. My painting at the moment is still just flailing around and I'm doing whatever is on my mind, with the 2mm project being something that went round in my head one early morning sitting in the dark with an awake baby.

*I want to say 2023?

   I'm not sure why I stopped doing this project at the time, other than I guess it went down the priority list. I know the cavalry and Gallic warbands were intimidating me a bit but the legions are fairly easy to keep moving. I decided to do a legion and try the cavalry to prove to myself they were do-able, then added another legion as I got the first done quicker than expected.

   I have to say, that I enjoyed the cavalry more than I expected and have a real urge t buy more of them, only having the one as it was about the minimum I could get away with. Before that, I just need to finish a project and get it on the table.

A Gallic warband or two next, I think.

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Scenery Project 1 - Dibbler's Meat Pie Shop

   I've been looking online for some interesting buildings to supplement my collection, those models that just have a bit of character to draw the eye. I follow Fogou Models on Bluesky and this building came up as someone had shared it, which instantly made me realise I needed one for my Madina.

   Its made of an almost plaster of Paris feeling resin, so is a very different beast from the other plastic kits I've been playing with* and with it only taking an afternoon to paint, it was a lovely little project. The model is called the Bakehouse and I've added a roll shutter door** and junction box from the same company just to give it something, along with cardboard signs. 

*this will not play well if stored in the same box as a foam built adobe

**I meant to order their shop opening but didn't realise I'd ordered incorrectly until I made this post

   All of my other scenery for this project has been made with multiple periods in mind, so I'm trying not to put anything futuristic on that can't be removed for WW2 or Medieval games. This model I just decided would be sci-fi all the time and I think it just suits it.

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Vehicles For The Desert

   A few months ago we took the family on a long weekend to Cornwall to take full use of the last year where holidays can be taken in term time, this was supplemented with an extra night in Devon to break up the journey home. Looking at where we ended up staying it became obvious that a quick stop at the Tank Museum in Bovington was a real possibility.

   We went to the museum fully aware that a young family and museums normally means a rapid exit when someone gets too bored, so I set my hopes low and aimed to see a few key vehicles. However, we were pleasantly surprised, every area has something for kids to play with, be it a table with army figures, fake Lego to build your own tank or a giant snakes and ladders, all topped off with a massive soft play.

   This all brings me back to the project I started as the big early project for 2023, my African theatre British for WW2. I worked my way through the infantry in January that year but I was stumped on the exact colour for the vehicles and while I was working out my plan, other projects took over and this one was forgotten beyond it being the first option to play with my brother before we both drop the plan as neither of our armies were finished.

   Coming back from holiday, I was, unsurprisingly, massively motivated to get some tanks painted, so I went to work playing with sprays and paints in my collection before deciding on a Zhandri Dust spray as a prime then a really watered down Tallarn Sand just to get the colour a bit closer and I was quite pleased with the result on the test Humber MK2 (below).

Humber MK2 from Warlord Games

   I then decided to use the other vehicle that came in the Gentlemen's War starter box to test the blue camouflage, which took me a few days of looking at my paints and photos online before I was happy to try an idea. Then work and home life hit hard and it took me about 2 weeks to finish this model, but again, I'm pretty pleased on the end result.

Stuart "Honey" tank

   With those done, I then sat on the project again for a bit due to just a lack of opportunities to actually use these armies, but with the new Wayland Games venue hopefully opening in the next couple of months, it would be good to get this project usable and ready to go.

   With that in mind, here are the first Matilda and a light mortar team that I need for my first list. I need to pick up another sprue of 8th army infantry as I am short an officer team in the new edition, but otherwise I just need a table and time to get a game in.

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Sons of Horus Terminators

   Hobby wise I'm bouncing all over the place at the moment and I'm not all that apologetic about it. Between work and kids, my hobby time is all over the place so I'm sticking with the 'anything painted is something off my list' theory of getting stuff done and hoping to just keep chipping at projects.

   In that vein, I have a smaller sub project in my Horus Heresy Sons of Horus that I wanted to get finished and that is a terminator/landraider themed army. In the book Vengeful Spirit there is a scene in the battle for Molech where the Sons of Horus rush an army forward where the first wave is described as being entirely terminator armed and in landraiders, and this has very much stuck with me, with various lists written in my head, priced out and then scrapped.

   However, I've been slowly doing units for other projects and ended up in a position where I basically had everything I needed to try it out, so that's what I am doing*. This is the big block of axe wielding terminators to accompany my preator in his shiny Spartan transport. 

*although, as of last night I have found out my last landraider that I bought in 2020 is missing a sprue, so that's an email to customer services

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HMS Bienfaisant

   A project that I need to get better at working on is my Battle of Dogger Bank (1781) navies. I'm always really pleased with the ships I finish for this project and the box they are stored in is something I can happily just sit and stare at*, but the process of rigging the ship is an ordeal if you aren't in the right frame of time.

*although my mate Neil's ones are a work of art that put mine to serious shame

   Every ship I've painted for this project, so far, has been for the Dutch navy, this is the first ship for the British, HMS Bienfaisant, a 64 gun ship of the line captured from the French.

   I had a plan to try and do a ship a month this year to just keep them slowly trickling out, its now march and this is the first, so that's going well.

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Little Gallopers

   Back early in 2022, I put a post up with some 15mm English Civil War dragoons for my Parliamentary forces and made a passing comment at the end of the post saying I was looking forward to getting this project on the table later in the year - that was 3 years ago at this point and I am pretty sure these Royalist gallopers have been on their sticks with the horses painted that whole time judging by the amount of chips to the paint.

   Over on the social media app Bluesky there is a guy who is encouraging me to look at buying into American War of Independence in 10mm as the models do look amazing (although, I suspect if I do get into that, it'll be in Essex's 15mm), however, as I was sitting at a kids birthday party being tempted by the toy soldiers online a sensible voice in my head reminded me of two things; 1. Money, lets hold off spending money I don't need to for at least a bit. 2. I have so many 15mm projects that can't get onto a table due to not having even minimal armies being complete.

   I've been painting a real assortment of odds and sods, but this is a project I think I should focus on as it is close enough to being complete that its worth the push but also, I think it will look much more convincing that my 28mm project for this era, mostly just as the pike blocks look much more 'pikey'.

   These are the two units of cavalry I like as a minimum for these projects, a captain/general and a horse holder for the back field. I'm pretty sure the figures are all from Essex Miniatures barring the horse holder stuff as they are from Peter Pig.

   This is definitely a project that I always meant to expand much further than the initial 24 points or so of Pikeman's laments forces but to even think about that I need to get the infantry finished now.

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5th New York

   While on sick leave I had planned to give myself two or 3 big (ish) projects to do, mostly painting big units of things that I just haven't been doing in my normal painting time. One of those was an army of Warlord Epic scale American Civil War Zouaves that I picked up in a sprue sale last year. I had time while off to get some of the base colours on and have since gone back over them to get them done.

   I really like having Zouaves on the table when playing ACW as the reds they tend to have in their uniforms give a bright pop above all the blues, greys and browns that the Union/Confederates normally wear. I have a few units painted for my 28mm ACW in the form of the 72rnd Pennsylvania, Baxter's Fire Zouaves but for these I went for a more "Zouave" colour scheme and picked a unit that had the red trousers, this time being the 5th New York.

   I'm hoping to get more 15mm gaming in this year* and having these done gives me one more thing to put on the table and something else not sitting on a side next to me. 

   I need to get their other banner, but they have their US flag for the moment.

*although I need to actually game to do this

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