Dr Who - Cybermen heavy weapon

 Cybermen heavy weapon 

Another small bit off the table a Cybermen from citadel miniatures, from the Tom Baker period of Dr Who. I simple paint, ink and drybrush 

Cheers

Matt

Fougeres - Felgar Games

 Felgar Games 

I attended the Felgar Games tabletop games event this weekend. A big mix of anything tabletop with a huge crowd coming through. The Wargames tables had their own hall so we did have some space to play. I played  my first game of Écourchers, which I liked, the coin system worked well and I captured the pig with my English, porc crackling tonight! Although different to most Wargames shows it did draw a huge public crowd that ebbed and flowed all day. 

Large Hall

Saga French 

Saga French 

Saga French 

Nice pieces from Victrix camp set 

Victrix camp set 

StarCraft 

Battle of Hoth 

Lovely ww2 scratch builds 

Great scratch built train from the Christmas set 

Same train 

My troops capturing the pig

Cheers

Matt

Écourchers - First game

 Écourchers 

Had my first game of Écourchers today at the Fougeres tabletop games convention. I purchased the rules in the kickstarter but have not had the opportunity to play yet. 

We had a small group of Perry Miniatures each,  consisting of four MAA with leader and banner man, five spearmen and five archers in each retinue. The game has simple mechanics and you spend a coin to do an action or reaction. Initiative is important only sometimes and you can gamble coins to win it, command is the most important, archery can be effective also. The game was complete in under a hour so great for club games. My English retinue made off with the goal of the scenario the capture of the pig! Off to paint single based medieval now….

Cheers

Matt

Fangorn is my name according to some. Treebeard others make it. Treebeard will do.

 Treebeard 

I purchased this figure last year while at GW world, and painted him for the analogue painting challenge, an excellent plastic kit that went together well. I painted him in dark brown then several washes and dry brushes to get the silver finish I was after. The hobbits are nice sculpts but much smaller than the 2000s metals in my cupboard. He will go on the display case with the rest of my LOTR collection.

Cheers 

Matt

Renaissance Galleys

 Renaissance Galleys 

These 1/600th scale ships have been in my collection for over 15 years, when a few of us were thinking about Ottoman - Venetian wars.

The ships are from the Skytrex range, I have some sails coming from the UK in the next week or two. 

Happy with the results 

Cheers

Matt

Tomorrow’s War - troopers

 Tomorrow’s War Troopers 

Some figures for my future wars skirmish team, a mix of Crusader and infinity miniatures. Happy with my results 

Cheers

Matt

Paranoia/citadel - Blue trooper

 Paranoia/citadel - Blue trooper 

A figure I picked up last year at Partizan, she will join my Judge Dredd collection and is the paint scheme of my block defence unit. Quite happy with my results 

Cheers

Matt

ACW Farrier

 ACW Farrier 

Another Dixon Minature, it is quite lovely farrier piece, I need to assemble and paint the farrier wagon. 

Cheers

Matt 

French Napoleonic dragoons

 French Napoleonic Dragoons 

First completed pieces off the desk since our return from holidays. French dismounted dragoon skirmishers from the Perry plastic Dragoon box. Quite a simple paint job and done quite quickly. Really happy with the results. 

Cheers

Matt

Gangs of Rome - camel train

 Gangs of Rome 

I finally have got back to painting my Gangs of war figures as I want to play a game at our upcoming club open day and I need to add two more gangs plus some civilians to flesh out my table. I completed a slaver/camel train leader plus two camels. 

Cheers

Matt

Xenomorph…… not another bug hunt

 Xenomorph…..not another bug hunt 

Completed my first batch of xenomorph’s for the Alien Another Glorious Day in the Corps board game. I watched a bunch of how too paint videos on YouTube, I settled on a blue green myself with a gloss wash. I added the saliva using glue. Quite happy with my results. 

Cheers

Matt

ACW band

 ACW Band 

I purchased these off my mate Greg, a Dixon marching band. I decided to paint them as confederates, I plan to also paint union band too. 

Cheers

Matt

Mad March 2026

 Mad March 

Every year I try to reduce the stash, I have a lot of unbuilt kits, particularly modern and ww2, plus some ww1 aircraft. I also suffer from half built kit syndrome, as I like to paint the interiors, the pilots or drivers then assemble the kit. So with that in mind I'm starting the 30 day kit build, if you like join me and blog about it, steal the picture below if you like

Join me if you wish on Facebook, Blog and Instagram using the tag

#30daykitchallenge

Or join the fun on the

The Wargamers Forum

RULES

Goals are simple, you will build your part built and new kits during the 30 day challenge:
Any material (plastic, resin, metal, wood).
New in the box or partially built, it matters not.
Gun, tank, truck, aircraft, ship, figure animal? Your call.
Kit must be basically finished, based if you prefer that, to qualify as a build.
The completed kit must be ready for primer.
Resin and metal upgradesets can be applied after the build.....the goal is to get kits built and ready for primer, not to finish them with paint and varnish etc.
You decide how many kits/models you want to build in the 30 day period.
You set the penalty for not meeting your goal (and after that it is the honor system)

Anything beyond that is up to you

My goal is the period from 1/3/2026 up to 31/3/2026, I plan to work on a number of kits, until I have completed my goal. My goal is grand total of 16 kits, If I can build more kits in the month, then bonus.


My penalty is that if I don't make my target, is not to buy another kit for the rest of the year :(.

So, starting with Day #1 (1st March 2025), I'm starting with some Allied 1/72 landing craft kits first then onto some more vehicles and some aircraft.

Cheers
Matt

Wip Wednesday- Napoleonic and LOTR

 Wip Wednesday 

A mixed batch this week as I finally finish stage 1 of my new painting and modelling area on the third floor, both bookcases are full and I need to still have the electrical completed along with a mount for the TV, but my painting desk is set up now and I still need to add the VMC for the extractor fan for the airbrush station. 

This week I have started on some dismounted Perry French Dragoons and my Calpe Kurmark Prussian Landwehr cavalry, horses are complete and onto the 1st Sqaudron figures hopefully done by Sunday.

I also assembled the Games Workshop Treebeard along with Pippin and Merry, plus a Bloodbowl hobbit team, all purchased last year during my Games Workshop visit when we were in the UK. On Tuesday in between painting, I tried the new Ammo blue plastic cement, it is really rapid and is better imho than the Tamiya green thin, 20 seconds pressed together, than ten minutes to dry. 

This morning I received my Piano Wargames Baden kickstarter and Piano plastic French, a little excited so the day was used to assemble the plastics and trim and clean the metals. The metals are exquisite figures, really looking forward to getting some paint on them over the next few weeks.  The French plastics are really nice  and will be a joy to paint the faces and weapons are excellent. 

Back to my French wargames club on Friday night to play Ècourcheurs with some of the chaps. I need to get my retinue painted in the next few weeks.

Cheers

Matt

Napoleonic Kurmark Landwehr Cavalry Part 1

 1st Kurmark Landwehr Cavalry  

1st Kurmark Landwehr cavalry charge into the 7th Italian foot regiment at Dennewitz

After nine weeks in the antipodes away from the painting desk I finally got back into it this past week, lots of toys arriving also as a few Kickstarters have completed while I was away but were on hold before posting,  most notable Piano miniatures Baden and the new plastic French which I am excited for. Another is the new Écorcheurs rules for medieval skirmish along with an order from Gripping Beast. 

Last year I ordered some Landwehr cavalry just after Gripping Beast started to produce the Calpe miniatures range and picked them up at Partizan in November, so they had no real chance of seeing the table before this year. 

One of the units I elected to build this last week was the Kurmark Landwehr cavalry, two sqaudrons strong. The unit is quite interesting and striking with its Prussian litwka and British shakos laced with white band. Plus the different pennons in each Squadron. There is also a great painting by Knotel of the 7nit charging Italian infantry at Dennewitz. The figures are a fantastic sculpt by Peter and wear a combination of regulation and non-regulation items. 

Uniform

A standard dark blue cavalry litewka for the ORs, the officers wore regulation uniform and shako. The litewka had a poppy red facing colour only appears on the collar, not the cuffs, gold buttons for officers, brass for ORs. White epaulettes for the first Sqaudron, red for the second and yellow for the third. The leather work is all black, included in the sculpt is horse shoe holder also a neat addition. The portmanteau is the same blue with poppy red lace work 

The shabraque has pointed ends in light blue like a dragoon uniform with a twin lace of Poppy red with a poppy red heart in the corner. The shabraque is a pre 1750s model type, similar to Graf Brühl chevauxlegers shabraque in the 7 years war. 

The shako is thought to be a British stovepipe shako. One reference says they may have been captured French hussar shakoes but more credible sources do credit the British with the original source. This shako was black but the top rim was laced in white. Where the plate would have been, there was now a large black and white Prussian cockade, centre in black and outer rim white. A second smaller Prussian cockade was placed at the top of the shako on the white rim, also with a black centre and white outer. The two cockades were joined by a line of ribbon with a black centre and white edging. The ribbon ended in a button which helped hold the large central cockade in place, most sources show this in white metal. The chin scales attached to the shako were yellow metal.

The lances were white over black pennants for the first Sqaudron, second quartered black and poppy red black. 

In Knotel's painting of the 1st regiment at Dennewitz, a squadron officer appears in the left foreground of the picture, he wears full regulation uniform down to the sheepskin shabraque with rounded corners.

Cheers

Matt