Peninsula Army

 Generic Nationalist regular army

Army of Africa and some allies

 Here's some of my 15mm Spanish Civil War. All original Peter Pig miniatures.

Legion Bandera

Moorish Tabors

Falange with captured tractor

All quiet on the Blogging front

 As May slowly fades, I realise I have not posted recently.

The truth is, there's not that much to report!

The last two weekends disappeared in a flash without achieving anything of note; a combination of work burn out and sheer apathy!

I did however discover my Humbrol acrylics that I'd used for my SCW. There was a mix of old and slightly newer pots. I was somewhat disappointed to discover the older pots had begun to suffer ill effects to their lids, and when prying them open began to crack and in one case crumble into dust! I was relieved to find the content was still useable. The newer pots, while the lids were intact had all solidified and dried up.......

At least it gave me some replacement lids.......

Just for Jonathan

 Some pictures of the militia which I finished yesterday, awaiting varnish and basing.

The new painted figures are towards the front.

May Day

I spent May Day appropriately painting some 15mm Peter Pig SCW Republican militia.....

I found some undercoated figures that had been languishing in a box for probably close to 20 years......yikes!

It's been a long time since I painted 15mm. If memory serves, I used to alternate between SCW and ancients in 15mm with the 30mm Spencer Smiths (which required radically different painting techniques).

The militia had a mix of unpainted and painted figures, so it was a challenge  to match what were very well painted miniatures with 3 shade layers on black undercoat......

It didn't help that I couldn't find the Humbrol acrylics I'd used for some colours...

We'll see how they turnout......

An update on things and sidetracked by Spain

 As we approach the end of April, I thought I'd better post something to prove the blog is still going.

While I'd hoped to make progress painting the Estavian Imperial army, sadly nothing happened. The effort of completing Arcadia left me disinclined and somewhat discouraged (lots of little things went wrong for reasons that are unclear).

Then I got sidetracked (more on that later).

Things have resumed with cleaning up and converting two of the Electoral army contingents, Naervaron and Cleve (swapping Grenadier heads and shaving off copious amounts of flash). They are done, varnished and awaiting undercoating, so nothing picturesque. In addition, I also (on a whim) made some more Fimo personalities with the last of my plastic horses.

Turned out OK, but I wish I'd baked them longer as they turned out brittle; the problem is I've had some be left in too long and they almost melted!

As it is, I ploughed on and got them done with a PVA coat ready for the black undercoat. I had only a vague idea of what I would do; a realisation that Arcadia have an heir that probably needs a figure was the start, but the bug was on me and I ended up with 8 figures (including my 2nd female riding side saddle.

They fill some gaps - Banst, Sinistria and Cleve all have heirs or brothers and three are destined for the Imperial service and fit right in. Another example of the organic way the project has grown while having fun and indulging myself.

Diversions

It started with buying more books on the Spanish Civil War (SCW). Then on a whim I bought these:

https://wargaming4grownups.blogspot.com/p/for-whom-dice-rolls-description.html

Many (many) years ago I bought Peter Pig starter sets for both sides at one of the few Cornish war games shows (as did two other people). They languished. I had wanted to do the SCW since seeing the series in Military Modelling. It was only when I bought a copy of Command Decision that I thought about using the SCW figures with the guide in the Command Post Quarterly for the SCW.

I painted some forces and played a number of games, adding figures and vehicles to the unpainted pile. As happens, things moved on and they have not seen much use. However, the urge to restart grows now prompted by the rules above.

They will need adapting; my figures are two to a base representing a platoon, so will have to think about movement trays or similar. What I like, is that as per Command Decision, training and morale are separate, so it's possible to have untrained fanatics and well trained but nervous troops. The use of cards is interesting; especially since I managed to obtain some unique Nationalist and Italian sets in addition to the standard Spanish decks.

I feel I should take some pictures.....

Another impromptu parade

 Another quick parade after completing the Arcadian army for Soldier King.

Massed Guard Cavalry

Guard foot

Grenadiers 

Line Infantry

Artillery

Light troops

Staff

Fun with Flags!

With apologies to Sheldon Cooper of the Big Bang Theory......

It is how my wife refers to my Imagi-Nation vexillological sessions.....

In this case it is Arcadia, the last of the Soldier King nations from the game; I have added others from the non-owned provinces in the game. I have a soft spot for Arcadia, probably deriving from playing them in the game.

I envisaged them as a sort of Prussian - Wurtembourg - Danish hybrid. The heraldic symbol is a black lion on gold / yellow. From the start I had clear ideas about them in my head. Maximum guard heavy cavalry and veteran foot clothed in yellow (from Neil Cogswell - "Oheim's supreme moment" the Wurtemburgers were clothed in yellow for a brief impractical period - 1752 - I checked - it's in Knotel if nowhere else).

The flags were harder; I had the idea of black and white to stop them being too gaudy and sketched something from IIRC Dutch flags around the central emblem.

Top row shows the Naval and Foreign regiments, Dragoons. Next 3 rows are line regiments with Guard infantry and cavalry towards the bottom with the second Dragoon unit.

And Victory snatched from the jaws of defeat......

When I informed my wife of my inability to find the paint I needed, and the consequent halting of progress yesterday, she said "if you order some you will probably find what you already have..."

Needless to say, she was right! I had left the figures and bases out and before tidying them away, I had a final search. It was only when I moved the box where most of my paint I'm using and painting stuff (brushes, palette) that I discovered my part open pot had fallen behind the box. Hurrah!

Here follows an impromptu parade of Argozia's finest, with the glue still drying on their bases......

For the want of a nail........

Or in this case paint......

Progress on the Argozian army for Soldier King came to a screeching halt today upon the discovery I had apparently run out of the particular paint colour I use for the figure bases - Vallejo Game Colour Goblin Green.....

This has been rectified but alas brings further progress to a halt until it arrives.

I had managed to make progress with the bases during the week after finishing work, doing a little each day. Alas, I made the cardinal sin of assuming I had some in stock, based on the not unreasonable assumption that there must be a pot due to my prelidiction for hoarding such things (to avoid the very thing that happened!).

Sadly, the Goblin Green is a perfect match for the Wilco test pot I use for the balsa bases; needless to say I have industrial quantities of this paint!

What's most distressing is that I don't tend to forget such things, normally able to recall when I'm running low. It must be age.......a fact both worrying and depressing!

The flags of Argozia

 Here's last weekend's work, the flags of the third of the Soldier King armies - Argozia.

It is the "green" army based on the game heraldry of a black eagle on a green field.

Consequently, the troops are mostly wearing green or have green as facing colours. This army caused considerable thought to avoid them looking like Russian clones, and I struggled to find suitable schemes. Oddly, in one of my earliest doodles I sketched the white infantry flag in the 2nd row (now belonging to the 3 foot garde regiments) which I liked so much it has had little revision and forms the basis for all the foot colours.

And yes, it is very influenced by Austrian and Hungarian colours of Maria Theresa's army. Strangely, although the influences were more from the Kingdom of Italy and American Loyalists, when painting the General staff, their uniforms (while green) were influenced by those of the Austrian army in Mollo, although not planned as such.