Rain stops play ! - but back to the paint table ! Huzza !

 

Well we where wanting rain for the gardens - and we got it ! , so work has come to a stop for the moment .

The up side of this means I can get back to painting figures , many of these have been undercoated and awaiting paint for quite a while , so if the rain continues I'll get a lot done in the next few days . 

Yet another 'Grand Day Out' .

 

Me and my dear wife had a day out at Sizergh Castle in the South Lakes , it's taken me quite a while to get around to visiting it as I've live all my life within a stones throw of it - if you got rid of the trees and the odd hill - and climbed onto our house roof I could see it ! 

It was originally a Pele Tower/ Keep and dates back to the 1200's . It's run by the National Trust and has a well thought of garden surrounding it.

Over the years other generations have added bits on and the result is a bit higglty pigglty , but very quaint.

It has been owned by the Strickland family for about 800 years . These houses seem to have need to display weapons in the Hall above fireplaces - here we see a jumble of weapons probably none of which have anything to do with the house and purchased from various auctions.

Zulu shields and spears !? - as far as I know the family has no connection with S.Africa.

Above some of the fireplaces are magnificent oak carved paneling .

James the 2nd- Seamas an Chaca (James the shit), the Stricklands have always been Catholic - even when it was unpopular to be so and after the 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688 followed King James into exile in France , only returning after 15 years.(sorry for the glare on the photo)

Lots of Flemish (?) tapestries  

even more tapestries.

Another loser 'Bonnie Prince Charlie' - they didn't back this one !

Don't think I would like to try and sleep in a bedroom like this - to Gothic Horror for me !

Members of staff cleaning - I was told a never ending job - they Hoover things whilst using a protective muslin sheet to prevent damage to the furniture.

More armour  on display , these are back and breast plates from the Civil War era - they backed the wrong horse in that race as well ! 

No not Lady Macbeth - Mrs K coming down a spiral staircase .

Out into the gardens - trying out my panoramic view (click on photo to enlarge).

I have heard people who know about gardens (I do not) sing the praises of this garden.

The weather helped (now raining here as I type this)

Honey Bees ! - there was a sign say 'Warning Bees' !

Love these steps - my neighbour would have wanted to weed them (philistine with OCD) (he despairs about ours)

Lovely feature , the building is mainly local Limestone so the Sandstone surround must have been imported from somewhere .

Another 'Grand Day Out' - even Mrs K enjoyed it (not a natural castle person) and we even had some rather expensive ice-creams (it was National Trust after all !) . A link to a website about the castle so you can find out all the things I missed and got wrong.

Visit the house at Sizergh │ North West | National Trust

 

 

A trip to Partizan 25 (a grand day out)

So the stars aligned and myself and 'A' had a trip out to the Partizan show . It's several year since we visited it so we where both a bit hyped to be going again , plus we were to be meeting or old wargaming pal 'R'  there. The show was VERY busy with lots of traders and some spectacular games.

There was an unusual 'Marlburian' era game set in the Indies 

Big chunky bases and spectacular scenery.

A Voodoo warband !

A very nice SYW game or rather a display of some nice terrain and beautiful figures

Lot of individually converted figures .

Lots of animated figures. (click on photos to enlarge)

Guns emplaced on the chateau roof.

Beautiful figures and terrain but not really a wargame.(?)

A large ACW game , I liked the use of various bits of 'Teddy Bear' fur fabric.

Another view of the ACW game . I'm sadly aware I didn't note who had put these games on .

A rather nice Sikh Wars game (actually being played)

A Sikh square (?)

Sikh Howitzer.

The game of the show for me was Peter Dennis's 2D Paper Soldiers ACW game .

The figures are 15mm scale , all the terrain is paper too.on a rather nice felt mat.

I bet the earthworks were fiddly to assemble , you need a good printer to get the best out of the figure illustrations - and a steady hand to cut them out.

The Perrys had a large Peninsular game set up and being played - Spanish versus French .

Lots of nice plastic figures .

The three Amigos- 'R' , 'A' and myself - my rather short arms means I don't take a good selfie. A great day out for all . I have an older photo of us three taken about 20 years ago but decided to to do a 'before and after' comparison . I got into the show on the concession rate (£2) being an OAP and much to 'A's annoyance and my amusement he was offered the same deal ! (he being much younger than me !)😂  

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Toy Soldiers in Art No.28

I found this whilse scanning the Internet,  a young boy playing outside in the garden (on a bench?)  with a selection of Britains hollow cast cowboys with a homemade cabin (?) . I would make a guess at the 40s/50s . One of the mounted figures has lassoed a foot figures and is probably poised to to drag him off in true wild west film style .

I have some of the same figures in my collection , here's a few been repainted and based (they fall over very easily)

And some of the mounted figures which are awaiting repairs and basing as they too fall over with monotonous regularity. 

 

Friday game campaign (game 1)

 

We have decided to link our games into an informal campaign.  The 'Firepower' rules have 6 scenarios so we diced for which one to start with. 

 

We came up with Scenario 1 Battle Lines , 'S' was to be the attacker 

Initially 'S' had the best of the action but in the last couple of turns my Cavalry managed to flank his Artillery and in a stroke of luck overan both units before being  destroyed in turn .

The result was a win for my Union forces , we will be recording who wins and the resulting casualties. It was a good game that could have gone either way,  as I've said before the rules are simple but rather clever - more of a game than perhaps a recreation of the American Civil War but easy to play and got the game done in time