Work In Progress.........May 2014

Relatively busy month on the wargaming front, and I’ll kick off with a trip to Sheffield and the Triples Wargaming show which is becoming something of an annual tradition. 

Triples

Michael turned chauffeur once more for the early morning drive, and late afternoon return, and I was fortune enough to be the largest and as such sit in the front, the back of the car being occupied by Red, Aidan and Luke.  With funds at a very low ebb I was watching a few items I was selling on eBay and was lucky enough that they came in with a high enough income to afford the basic pieces I wanted to pick up.

Buying seemed to mainly surround modelling bits, with flock, bases and matt varnish purchased, while the model horde was a box of 5 plastic soldier company Shermans for my 15mm late war Brits, a Typhoon to support them, a French office on a horse, and finally the limbers for my 6mm Union artillery.  Altogether 10 models purchased then. 

Other moments worth noting was that the show seemed quiet in terms of punters, but plentiful in traders with almost all the usual faces.  I tried my hand at a medieval tournament game, but although  the imagery appealed strongly the game play didn’t make it jump out enough to part with £30 I didn’t have for the rules (http://crossedlances.com/), this wasn’t aided by the demonstration of the game, and I think I will look again at some point because I did like the premise.  The other piece that caught the eye was the Jugula gladiator game, and Luke invested in it and I’ll keep an eye on that too.

Painting

On the painting front I have been quite active this month, with my Napoleonic game against Aidan galvanizing my work on the 28mm French troops.  I have painted, dipped and stuck to bases a total of 50 models.  They still require their bases sanding, painting and flocking before the final coat of matt varnish can be applied and they qualify as being finished, something which needs doing before the 6^th July which is when they are needed at Gauntlet!  I’ve an additional 13 models part the way through the painting process, and when they are complete I will have 2 battalions (each of 36 men, with 4 extra men to be used as skirmishers) and an officer to contribute to proceedings.  I did at one point think that 3 battalions was a possibility but I became distracted two weeks ago by……

……Panthers!  9 to be exact, which I have had for near 4 years by my reckoning if not longer, and they have been half painted for at least half of that.  With a potential gaming day at Deeside coming up I had a sudden wave of enthusiasm for painting them up to use.  When it came to it work stopped play, but I carried on with the models, and 8 Panthers, 1 Bergepanther, and a Konigstiger later and I’m very happy with the results.  I’m aiming to field this as part of a very unbalanced army against James later in the month (James; if you’re reading this should you fail to win after being being handed the oppositions team sheet you should be ashamed of yourself).

Work for this month consists of getting the French up and running, all of them.  I’ve also got some halftracks which I was going to add to my 15mm German painting efforts, and I was considering completing the fix job that my Jerry’s 2cm AA guns need, perhaps repainting them in late war colours to match the Panthers etc because they are mostly used in my late war games.

Ratio’s

Managed to add a few figures to the total this month, as along with the 8 panthers, 1 bergepanther and a konigstiger I finished a solitary Sherman V complete with decals from Dom’s Decals (and very good quality they are too).

Edit: having chastised Red for not including the 2 gretchin I gave him in his models totals I managed to forget to add the twelve 28mm Frenchmen Pete handed over the other week, so now they are added in.  And James' Sherman Firefly.  Damn.

Purchased: 23

Painted: 47