Friday, November 5, 2021

Oh la Vache (holy cow!)

 Oh la Vache! 

One of my more favourite local French curses! After almost three weeks of low motivation I am back at it, completed a lot of all jobs and two large projects over the last two days.

First up cows, I know however I do use them in a few games here at French Wargame Holidays and I now have a modest herd of 12 beasts, which will serve well my purposes plus can be used as table clutter for bigger games. Miniatures are from First Corps range but I cut off the neck hump which is more of a southern thing on cattle. 




Cheers
Matt

Tuesday, November 2, 2021

Terrain Tuesday Gallic Village and buildings Part 1


Gallic buildings

My next terrain project is to get back to building some ancient terrain, first thing to complete is some Gallic buildings that can be stand alone or part of my hill fort build.


Inspiration will be taken from our local museum and the archeological report from Moulay Gallic fortress, the oppidum / hill fort is about 5klm from our house.


When wargamers build typical Gallic building they predominantly build round ones, looking at the archeological report on the 60HA site at Moulay only 10% were round and mostly animal shelters, workshops or storage. The majority are rectangular and some are quite big and include a theatre /council amphitheatre in Greek style, and a shrine.

I plan to build a number of buildings for residential, central buildings theatre and shrine and maybe a workshops area and some farms on the exterior of the Gallic Oppidum fortress. 


typical Gallic buildings


artist impression of the workshops



Gaulois building typical at Moulay 53BC



Gaulois building typical at Moulay 53BC


Theatre

one of the buildings was a theatre or perhaps a parliament council, or sale yard, I want to add this model to my village.





Gallic Farms

Gallic Farm steas with it own boundary ditch and walls, these are all along the roads leading into the village along the route of the modern motorway


Gallic farm model


Gallic Head Hunter Shrine

Moualy does have a shrine but no evidence of a head hunter shrine as the current church is built over the site, the Diablintes and Cenomani may of taken heads so I will add one I think.



Gallic head hunter shrine near Tours




Stone pillars the heads were placed in the hollowed out pieces

Excited to get cracking on these!

cheers
Matt


Monday, November 1, 2021

Captain Tom

 Captain Tom

Completed the warlord captain Tom NHS figure for my mate Mike. A nice figure to a great man.


Cheers 
Matt

Friday, October 22, 2021

ZULU DAWN!

 Zulu!

As I have started to plan projects for next year to add to the build project list I am thinking of revisiting some colonial gaming, which I have not done for 7 years at least. With that in mind I dug into my drawers of unpainted kit and come up with two pieces that would be fine little dioramas for my new display case in the "Salon de Guerre!" and give me a taste of future thinking and a taste of things to come. I enjoyed the flesh tones on the Zulu figure and with a bit more work I feel I would get it very close.

Salute Zulu diorama

Empress Miniatures







cheers
Matt

Friday, October 15, 2021

Soviet Motostrelki Motorised Infantry part 2

 

 Soviet Motostrelki 

Finally after finishing some more house renovations I have managed to sit down and complete some miniatures. last week I completed another soviet motorised battalion for my cold war collection. The figures 20mm from the Elhiem Miniatures range, I plan to paint another three battalions to complete my Armoured Division collection. Taking a break from camo this week as I get back to completing Prussian and Baden Napoleonic Infantry, plus a few medievals.

My cold war collection is growing rapidly and may soon surpass my ww2 collection for "completed kits" and figures. I am planning a big Able Archer game, multi divisional gaming weekend in Autumn 2022 for four to six players hopefully in the apartments with a 26-30m table, over a full weekend of modern wargaming. I will release the details in November for the event and our 2022 calendar. 

Soviet Motostrelki Command


Soviet Motostrelki Elhiem miniatures

Soviet Motostrelki

Soviet Motostrelki

Soviet Motostrelki

Soviet Motostrelki


I need to add Anti Air, 81mm and 120mm Mortar and HMG coys 

cheers
Matt

Monday, September 20, 2021

Aragonese Mercenary Crossbow Guerre-Folle

Aragonese Arbalète - Crossbow

 At the battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier, Aragonese contingents were sent by Ferdinand of Aragon to support the Breton Cause. The documents have 1000 mercenary Aragonese landing at Quimper to join the Breton Army under two captains, Pere de Queralt commanding a unit of Arbalète and Gimenez  Soler (a Aragon Jewish captain who had fought with Edward Woodville) a unit of spear men. The crossbow unit are complete and the spear unit not far behind. I have used the red cross on a green field the field sign of the Aragon contingents at the siege of Montpellier in 1479.

Again Perry miniatures based for impetus

Aragonese Arbalete -Crossbowmen

Cheers

Matt