Wargaming Bliss...

 When you live in my neck of the woods (Virginia USA), a package from the Royal Mail is always a good thing! A hefty batch of Spanish Civil War 15mm figs arrived a few days ago (BTW in great time...less than 2 weeks across the pond from order to delivery and a completely spot-on order...!) from Peter Pig (...many thanks guys!!).

It's like Christmas in July!

 What gamer worth his/her salt can't be salivating over a sight like this!...even my dear wife was impressed by the contents...her "wow, that's a lot in that box...!  ..."made all her past negative comments about my gaming expenditures fade into the past! (I call it the 15s effect...and it goes for 10s and 6s as well)...it always feels like riches when you open a shipment of 15s!

So for about $130. USD I was able to get a nice Spanish Civil War collection up and running doing both sides assuming one base=one company (100 men +-). Based four figures to a 40x40mm base will give me armies that will work for the "Portable Wargame" rules as well as such as AK47 Variant for SCW and Crossfire. So I am really getting back into this period after selling off all my 20mm SCW collection back in the late 90s (...in 20mm the best way to go is the beautiful  "Historical Products" line of SCW sculpted by the late David Alsop now sold by the very knowledgeable Pat Condray)

Nationalists

 I managed to get everything based up this evening and looking forward to a weekend of painting!

Republicans

 I just need a few more figures on the Republican side...and some Morrocans...and...well...you all know how it is...just a few more....
"Arriba Espania!"

15mm Spanish Village: Finishing Up

 I was able to make a few final touches on the Spanish Village with the addition of bases that would cover a 2 1/2" grid square and give a little area for added scenics. Though I think I will have to use some method for indicating units occupying the buildings as there is no room for them in the square if a building is in place.

 I also had a try at making some plowed fields after being inspired by Jeff's suggestion using the Liquitex "Ceramic Stucco". All the bases and the fields were made of the backing cardboard from a pad of drawing paper cut to size. The walls on the fields and building bases were cardboard as well and served to stiffen the cardboard when later painted. I found the fields warped for a while when the Liquitex was drying but they dried flat eventually. Just a matter of painting and some added foliage and a small amount of static grass and time to call the project finished.

Here you can see the fit of the buildings on the gridded surface

 I also did a final pass with a sharp pencil across the lines of the roof tiles to get a more convincing rendition of a pan-tile roof.
The final effect looks ok to me, and the added bases also give another layer of protection to the inner core of relatively soft foam inside. The buildings seem pretty sturdy and should survive a few knocks.

All ready for battle!

So now the wait for the SCW figures from Peter Pig will hopefully not be too long.
(This just in,.... a note from Peter Pig just arrived in my in-box saying the SCW figures are now headed my way...!)

New Project in Horizon Bleu!

POILU!

"Bluebear" kindly asked in the last post what those Old Glory figures mentioned were so I thought I'd devote a post to the "reveal". They are the first wave of a new pair of imaginary Interwar era armies. This first will be loosely based on WWI French equipment and their opponents will be some amalgam of Austrian and or Italian mountain types (haven't decided that completely...because I'm also entertaining a British intervention as well...all I'm sure about is a fictitious conflict in the Piedmont/Alps/Appenines region of Europe and despite the warring countries grand claims to nationalist fervor...we really know that it's all about the wine!...maybe I'll call it "The Cork Wars" ;)

Old Glory 25/28mm WWI French Advancing (basic 8 figure company)

As I mentioned last, I went with Old Glory figures for the core of the armies with Battle Honors and Askari to fill out the more exotic types. The figures are all around 26-28mm or so and comparable in heft so it should work out fine. The Old Glory WWI figures are some of their best stuff sculpting-wise and between OG and Battle Honors, there are some "rear area" figures like signalmen and medics/nurses to make for interesting additions to the games. And with my discount card at OG, I'm able to afford the armies! Of course this will also involve a few of those creaky early tanks and armored cars and such. And finally, painting figures for this era is fast!...I was able to do this first 8 man company in just a few hours.

Hotchkiss HMG (I'll be fielding 1 per 4 infantry companies)

Basic organization for the "French" equipped side will be (4), 8 figure companies to a battalion plus an HMG stand and a Battalion HQ with a couple of stands. To this core battalion will come guns, tanks, cav, and such. Armies of this era were transitioning from 4 company battalions to 3 so it will give a bit of flexibility in each army to field different sorts of forces...and since this will be fictitious, I might mix it up some. I'm going to keep the uniforms historical so I keep the option of selling the stuff if my interest wanes. (The bases are 40mm squares except for the Alpin because I changed my basing idea right after the glue had dried on them...so I have to decide how to get them off those washers?!)

Askari 28mm Chassuers Alpin (here only partially completed)

Rules will be varied, and I'm trying to make this collection play with several rule sets... as well as a set I wrote for the Spanish Civil War about 10 years ago. Maybe I can get them up to speed and offer them here for free.

Close Combat at Five Yards...on Skis!?

As I was pitching in to a new summer project, (a "slightly"-Imaginary 20thc Interwar era collection in 28 mm inspired by the Interbellum blog) I found myself hunting around for some painting inspiration and found this interesting —but to my mind, crazy/fanciful— image of a charge on skis?!. It would be interesting to know if this image was inspired by some real event...and what would have happened in the picture 30 seconds later! The webpage it was found on seemed to be an "orphan" with no functioning links in or out of the page.

I started small with a unit of 8, 28mm French Chasseurs Alpin that just arrived from Askari Miniatures (nice figures and will post pics soon!). Though I had wanted to do a toy soldier style collection inspired by the Funny Little Wars Rules, the cost and exchange rate precluded doing anything in 40mm and the conversion of 54mm plastics seemed a bit more than I could handle in these days of limited time and energy. So I'm going with a more "turn key" approach with 25/28mm primarily using Battle Honors and Old Glory with Askari to fill in some of the exotic types that might make an appearance. I'm still in the planning stages on what armies and equipment (except I'm sure one of them will be using French equipment...because I dig those tiny FT17 tanks and horizon blue uniforms!)