By way of an update

So, it’s been very quiet around here recently hasn’t it?

There are a few reasons for that, both personal and work. Lots of to-ing and fro-ing from Edinburgh and Elgin, Dunfermline and Lossiemouth at weekend for my better half and I has made sitting down of an evening to paint or write a bit more difficult. Work has picked up after the downturn in O&G and has been somewhat hectic with a few changes and challenges to deal with. However such is life!

Looking briefly ahead the last weeks of the year are approaching and so is a holiday to New York to celebrate our anniversary. Then there is Christmas itself. But we’ll end the year and see in the new one at Lossie where I have installed a painting lamp!!!

At the local club we have been playing through an AWI campaign based on that of Howe and Washington around New York in 1776 using Jim Purkey of Minden/Fife and Drum Miniatures AWI rules for the tabletop encounters and Worthington Games “New York 1776” for the movement and maps. 

Jim’s rules are excellent. Easy to follow and easy to adopt and adapt. You’ll find a copy on the F&D website. Check them out - linky

Worthington’s boxed game is one of those which uses blocks rather than card counters and has a simple set of mechanisms which work well. Transferring the battles to the table does give a different set of results than the “battleboard” from the box, but we have been able to play the campaign out and it is due to be completed next week with a large battle at Westchester.

Here’s a few pics of one of the earlier battles and if you look closely you’ll see the blocks from the game being used on the tabletop as markers for their “parent” unit. Here the Hessians and a British unit take on some rebels.

We plan on continuing these games using the Trenton game and possibly the Saratoga set from the same company next year. And have purchased a bit some more American looking terrain, rail and log fences. I've got my eye on some O-scale vegetables - pumpkin and corn to make a nice patch for a cabin.

For the Sugar Islands project I have been doing some more research. I had hoped to get this out before xmas, but the last thing I want to do at the moment is spend time at a computer having done so all day. I am trying to reconcile information I have regarding the Swiss unit and its detachments and the late arriving reinforcements which the French received, including Swiss, just after the surrender had been agreed.  Madame D’s troops are slowly being painted, along with herself and a few supporting military men to use as officers. After these I have some landing boats to paint and my notes to type up, so a release early next year is now on the cards.

I have made a start on Swedes for the GNW and now have 1 figure painted! (Told you I’d not done much!!). I plumped for the excellent Ebor range and bought a 24 fig unit for £25 – (eight pike, 16 shot) and a command pack. This gives me the bulk of my infantry for the skirmish sized games planned. Some horse and extra stuff are planned and I have some Pegasus Russian houses for scenery. I have twisted the arm of a friend and club member to join me in this project and he is working on some Danes.

Finally I have been pottering away on some Marlburian Bavarians. A long time ago I had this lovely blue army in 15mm and enjoyed Volley and Bayonet games of increasing size with them and Prussian, Russian and French armies. This time I have gone for the 28mm Wargames Factory plastics, a number of which I fell heir to following the passing of a friend a few years ago. Warlord own them now and appear to have tidied up the sprue a little it appears. The army boxed set is available at a discounted rate of £68 from a reseller, TripleHelix, so I had no excuse to not get them. They are not the easiest of figures to paint and require some detail to be “worked up” with the paint brush, but they’re not horrible and when painted and based up en masse the marching poses look pretty decent. I am doing these as my side of the bargain for my mate getting involved in the GNW stuff. He’s continuing with his Danish theme for his stuff.

More will be revealed in the new year.