Blog? What Blog?….and a new painting challenge

1 Dec
Posted on Author Iain 3

I suppose it has been a while since I last posted……in April.

I’ve just read back over what I said in April, about aiming to paint loads of Egyptians and being enthused about finishing projects. Sadly, I almost immediately hit ‘the wall’ and my painting mojo crashed and burned. I was still doing wargamey stuff, but no paint touched a figure for months.

I think that perhaps trying to average one painted unit a week for a year was asking too much. So, the new challenge is to complete an average of one wargamey ‘thing’ a week for six months, i.e. to the end of May 2022. A ‘thing’ being a unit, or piece of scenery, or finalising a set of rules.

The challenge starts today. Given the season, it’ll no doubt be a slow start.

But what have I been up to, I hear you both asking?

I’ve played a few games – all complying strictly with the Governments Covid restrictions.

In May and again in August, Tim Hall and I got together to playtest some old school ACW rules we’ve been working on (more on that in another post), and we got together again in June for a Western Gunfight and a colonial skirmish on the North West Frontier. Pemps (Mark Pemberton) popped down for a game with our newly painted 15mm WWII stuff in June, and in July the very talented Rob Grace visited for a game with my 20mm late 17th/early 18th century toys.

  • Tim Hall’s really rather splendid Confederates
  • The ACW playtest.
  • The ACW playtest
  • The ACW playtest
  • Gunfight
  • Colonial
  • WWII game
  • Pemp’s most excellent WWII British
  • 20mm early 18thC
  • 20mm Ottomans

Myself, Andy McMaster, Dave Hall and Gary Phillips rented a village hall just outside Grantham for a day in September and played out a seriously enjoyable 28/30mm 18thC game. Also in September I visited Caernarfon for a few days and played an absolutely barmy game with my mate John Cunningham using his huge early 18thC collection against his newly acquired late 17thC Ottomans (it looked stunning). Rob hosted a return match early in November when I got to play with his absolutely gorgeous Hinchcliffe English Civil War collection – which has to be seen to be believed.

  • 18thC like wot it should be played…….big!
  • The figures are the work of the very talented Andy McMaster (I’m reasonably certain that the chap with the red waistcoat and his servant are the sculpting of Mr John Ray.
  • The game at John’s. Brilliant fun playing with his huge collections.
  • Nearly all of the battlefield. I think we had twenty brigades each. 20/25mm late 17thC and early 18thC Europeans and Turks, al from the collections Of John Cunningham.
  • Me, explaining the finer points of cavalry tactics to an entirely unappreciative audience.
  • Some of Rob Grace’s lovely, lovely, lovely ECW collection.

And finally, I’ve just returned from the much delayed ‘annual’ Ayton weekend. So nice to see my friends from the Loose Association of Wargamers forum again. I played games with Mark Dudley’s beautiful classic 20mm old school Napoleonic collection, shiny 30mm ACW, shiny 42mm 19thC and played a bit part in an awesome 28mm Hail Caesar bash. What a great weekend. Sadly, I didn’t get any piccies of the ACW or 42mm shiny games, but at least the latter can be found here.

All in all, a cracking seven months of gaming. I’m very lucky.

  • Classic 20mm Napoleonic. From the collection of Mark Dudley. Ayton November 2021
  • Classic 20mm Napoleonic. From the collection of Mark Dudley. Ayton November 2021
  • Classic 20mm Napoleonic. From the collection of Mark Dudley. Ayton November 2021
  • Gorgeous Greeks, from the collection of Simon Tonkiss
  • Part of the mega Hail Caesar game


In addition to playing with toy soldiers, I managed a pretty decent amount of coast walking. Happy days indeed.

More anon (not to distant an anon, I hope).

3 Replies to “Blog? What Blog?….and a new painting challenge”

  1. Wow! You’ve had some great looking games!
    That 20mm Napoleonic game is wonderful! And those Ottomans are Glorious!

    P

  2. Totally missed this, what with being smitten with the plague and all. Some lovely lovely games on show. You have had a very good year.

    All I can say is good luck with the hobby challenge and… ‘finalising a set of rules’… Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Good one. You almost had me there….

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