Hobby Update August 2025

 

Bit of an update from me for August 2025. Lots to show off and a bit of blabber from me. 

2023 Painting Totals

 Thought I would go back and count up the 2023 effort.

• 6 Austrian Infantry for SYW (Eagle Figures) - 28mm
• 5 Eldar Dire Avengers (Games Workshop) - 28mm
• 14 Early War German Infantry for WWII (Crusader and Black Tree Designs) - 28mm
• 10 Early Imperial Roman Archers (Black Tree Designs) - 28mm
• 18 ACW Confederate Infantry (Essex) - 15mm
• 16 Carthaginian Infantry (Essex) - 15mm
• 8 Libyan Infantry (Essex) - 15mm
• 24 FPW French Line Infantry (Pendraken) - 10mm
• 3 FPW French Guns (Pendraken) - 10mm
• 3 Polish Vehicles WWII (Heroics & Ros) - 6mm

2024 Painting In Review

2025 is now well underway and as I write this I am sat in Thessaloniki, Greece enjoying a few days relaxation before trudging once more into the fray at work.

Although my work often takes me on the road, and away from my beloved toy soldiers, I feel that 2024 was a productive year. And in this post, I hope to summarize my achievements for posterity, but also as a reminder to myself to be less hard on myself. Juggling work, home life, the hobby, and all life's other demands is tricky enough, one shouldn't feel bad about falling short in the optional bits.

It was a year of intense travel again. Australia, Singapore twice, Greece and the UK several times. Also a trip to Brazil. So it is hardly surprising that nothing really got done until May 2024, so let's tally the scores for the year:

• 12 Seleucid Agema cataphracts (Magister Militum with a ringer from Old Glory) - 28mm
• 6 Crimean War British Line Infantry (Warlord Games) - 28mm
• 6 Crimean War British Grenadier Guards (Great War) - 28mm
• 6 Crimean War Russian Line Infantry (Wargames Foundry) - 28mm 
• 1 Crimean War Russian Line Gun (Britannia) - 28mm
  
• 31 Numidian Infantry (Essex) - 15mm
• 4 Numidian Cavalry (Essex) - 15mm
  
• 22 Greek Infantry (Essex) - 15mm
• 1 Boer Infantry (Black Tree Design) - 28mm
• 2 Matabele Infantry (North Star) - 28mm
• 8 Marian Roman Infantry (Wargames Foundry) - 28mm
• 30 WSS British Line Infantry (Baccus) - 6mm
• 16 Norman Infantry (Newline Designs) - 28mm
• 27 Middle Republican Roman (Old Glory 15's) - 15mm
• 2 Haystacks
  

I am not counting rebased figures, of which there were many.

The totals in each scale are therefore as follows:

• 6mm - 30 Infantry
• 15mm - 80 Infantry and 4 Cavalry
•  28mm - 45 Infantry and 12 Cavalry and 1 Artillery Piece with crew
• Terrain - 2 Haystacks

Not a bad shout for a year hampered by simply not being home enough. 

Crimea: Talking about Russian greatcoats

 

 I made a video talking about Russian greatcoats during the Crimean War. 

Some of the sources I used in the video are: 

https://www.authentic-costumes.com/product-page/russian-overcoat-1854-77

https://en.topwar.ru/198456-uniforma-krymskoj-vojny.html

https://www.matakishi.net/crimean-war-2021.html

https://talesfromghq.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-battle-of-arzov.html

 

In short, I am trying to make sense of the pictorial and written sources available to me, and finding it all a bit of a mess.

The Crimean War - A Wargamer's Reading List

Ever since watching Ralph Astley's excellent YouTube playlist for his Crimean War 18mm wargaming project, I have had this bug for a "thin red streak, tipped with steel". I then discovered Paul Ward's fantastic collection via his "Matakishi's Tea House" channel on  YouTube, and then the website that goes along with it. I then made the mistake of watching the 1968 film "The Charge of the Light Brigade", and I was utterly undone.

My brain went into overdrive trying to put together a project of my own, which is now underway. I was immediately captivated by the utter disaster (from a command & control standpoint) of the Crimean War and of course the visual splendour of a war, that at least for Britain, was the last gasp of the Napoleonic uniform aesthetic, and for all sides, the last pretense that the technology of war had not changed since Waterloo. 

Besides a general survey of the Crimean War, I have focused my reading on individual battles as well. My first focus being The Alma, which I believe offers the wargamer many options as a scenario. It can be tweaked here and there, tinkered with, and so has much to recommend it to the wargamer. 

Below is my reading list for the Crimean War, with some notes as appropriate. The links lead to Amazon where you can purchase the books.

 Note that this page will be updated as I read more.

General 

• The Russian Army of the Crimean War 1854-56 (Men-at-Arms) by Robert Thomas & Richard Scollins (1991) - 
• The Russian Army of the Crimea (Men-at-Arms) by Albert Seaton & Michael Roffe (1973) - 
• British Army On Campaign (2) 1854-56 : The Crimea (Men at Arms Series) by Michael Barthorp & Pierre Turner (1987) - 
• The Crimean War: 1854–1856 (Essential Histories) by J Sweetman (2001) -
   

Battle of the Alma

• The Battle of the Alma by Peter Gibbs (1963) - This book contains some interesting maps of the battle, specifically how British divisions went from march to line. The narrative is heavy on little details and moves along at a clip, without getting bogged down in minutiae. A quick and easy read. Highly recommended. Note that it is very Anglocentric and very much a product of its time.
  

• The Alma, 1854, (Knight's battles for wargamers) by Henry Harris (1971) - A slender volume written with the wargamer in mind. The author provides a very thorough survey of the topology the battle was fought on, which is most useful to the wargamer in terms of designing a scenario. The maps are top notch and the book manages to be succinct and provide everything a wargamer will need to put on the battle.

• The Battle of Alma and Its Incidents: By an Officer - Another slender volume. This is a essentially a poem that was written in honour of Emperor Napoleon III after the Battle of the Alma. Interesting as a historical artifact, but limited as a source for the Crimean War or Battle of the Alma, except that it provides an insight into the contemporary Victorian jingoism of the day. One would recommend reading this, but not purchasing it, unless one is a collector.

A Long Due Update (Happy New Year 2024!)

Blog Update

First of all, Happy New Year 2024! I haven't updated this blog since January 2020 in favour of releasing YouTube videos, however, the more YouTube videos I release, the more I realise that blogs and videos are very different media that serve different purposes. Based upon the traffic this blog gets, it is clear that blogs still remain much more searchable than videos. I suspect that it has to do with limitations on how YouTube videos are scraped for words, versus the written text of a blog. 

Anyway, enough shop talk. 

Life Updates

A lot has happened since my last update on the blog in January 2020. First, my wife and I managed to secure excellent employment with a tech company in California, which later morphed into a role that is largely on the road. This then led to us making the decision to move to the cooler climes of Washington state. The impetus behind this was my wife's family moving en masse to the Dallas area in Texas. Since we weren't keen on swapping the dry, hot Bakersfield climate for more-or-less the same, we moved North and were able to purchase our first home. 

We are now a household of 2 dogs near the sea, and loving life up in Washington.

 

Playing Games

One unintended outcome of the move to Washington is that I have found a regular gaming group, just across the border in Canada. How I met the main chap from the club was certainly serendipitous. In November 2022 I happened to be at Warfare in Farnborough, in the UK. I was in the UK ostensibly for work, but managed to stay over the weekend. I took the last-minute opportunity to attend the wargaming show with some purchases in mind. (I ended up spending about $500, so only small purchases) 

 

I had stopped for a pie and a cup of tea at the little snack area, when a man with a "North American" accent approached me and asked if he might share the table with me, since there was nowhere else to sit. I obliged, noted the accent, and asked him where he had come from. He said, "Vancouver, Canada." To which I said, "oh, I live 15 minutes from Vancouver." What luck! We chatted for a bit, and it turns out that I can see his town from my house, I am just across the water from him. Well, this led to emails and some sessions with the fabled White Rock Gamers, and the rest, as they say, is history. 

Having a regular gaming group to play with has re-invigorated my hobby as I am playing almost every week, and more importantly, playing historical wargames again! 

Examples of the stunning games we played in 2023:

A very small part of a very large Leipzig refight using Shako 2

Canvas Eagles

Action in the Sudan, Battles for Empire

My dastardly gunman finishes off a helpless supine opponent in What A Cowboy

Painting Miniatures

2022 was a very fruitful year for me in terms of painting. Especially considering that I was jumping off from a position of inertia. 

I'll share some snaps in this blog post, but they are but a small sample of everything I have been working on. Suffice to say, the prospect of playing with my miniatures has turned up the tempo. 

 

The numbers are as follows:

• 28mm = 21 Infantry
  
• 15mm = 42 Infantry
  
• 10mm = 24 Infantry | 3 Artillery & Crew
  
• 6mm = 36 Infantry | 3 Tanks
  

By project:

• 28mm Seven Years War = 6 Infantry
• 15mm Carthaginian Army = 24 Infantry
• Warhammer 40k Eldar = 5 Infantry
• 28mm Early Imperial Romans = 10 Infantry
• 6mm War of Spanish Succession British = 36 Infantry
• 10mm Franco-Prussian War French = 24 Infantry
• 10mm Franco-Prussian War French = 3 Artillery & Crew
• 15mm American Civil War Confederates = 18 Infantry
• 6mm World War II Polish = 3 Tanks
  

Goals for 2024

The Great Hobby Reawakening™ is well under way, but these are my goals for 2024:

• Get a gaming table set up in the basement, nothing fancy, but I would like something around 8 x 6 feet-ish. Initially I will use mats or cloths for coverage, but I would like to try my hand at MDF boards. 
• Finish up the Pendraken 10mm Franco-Prussian French force that I have and begin work on the German opposition.
• Paint up the Republican Roman opponents for my 15mm Carthaginian army. I ordered some from Old Glory 15's on January first.
  
• Finish up painting the remaining Baccus 6mm War of Spanish Succession British army that I bought in 2022. 

 In Closing...

I am on holiday in Greece at the moment, in the quest for some sunlight, and will only be home again at the end of the month. I am hoping to make more regular contributions to this blog in the coming year.

An Initial Sudan War Reading List for Wargamers

Battle of Abu Klea by William Barnes Wollen (1857-1936)

I am by no means an expert on the Anglo-Sudan, or Mahdist War. However, as a wargamer I have felt the siren's song of the conflict tugging at me gently over the years. What is more grand than the khaki and serge grey uniformed line of the Queen-Empress's finest arrayed against the white clad hordes of the Mahdi across a stark desert landscape? The conflict has its moments of consummate drama and excitement, and truly marks the end of an era of warfare. The Second Anglo-Boer war would drag the British Army, kicking and screaming, into the modern age.

An easy, enjoyable read, available for free from Amazon.

I have read several good books on the topic and have slowly been gathering a deeper and better understanding of the conflict over the years. I have found the following books to be invaluable as primers.First and foremost, I would recommend The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan by Winston Churchill. I found it to be a quick and easy read, largely thanks to Churchill's writing style. It is available for free on Amazon Kindle.

Another excellent read was Three Empires on the Nile: The Victorian Jihad, 1869-1899 by Dominic Green, which I listened to as an audiobook using Audible. It is available in print from Amazon. I listened to it whilst painting and found it more systematically and historically rigorous than the aforementioned Churchill work.

Specifically for Omdurman, Osprey provide a useful booklet Omdurman 1898: Kitchener's victory in the Sudan (Campaign) with a fantastic amount of photos, maps and drawings. Hardly surprising, since the author was none other than Donald Featherstone! Needless to say, it is a treasure trove for wargamers.

The last book is one that I am only just beginning myself, and that is Fire and Sword in the Sudan A Personal Narrative of Fighting and Serving the Dervishes 1879-1895 by Rudolf Carl Slatin. Slatin was an Austrian soldier and governor in the Sudan and is famous for having been a prisoner of the Mahdists, so he is likely to provide an interesting point-of-view.

A rather fanciful depiction from 1897. Source

That is all for now, as my own reading on the topic expands, I shall post those recommendations too. Needless to say, if you, gentle reader, have any recommendations, please do let me know in the comments. 

First Painted Miniatures of 2019

Apologies for the rather dreadful photo. Still, it is proof!

So, here we are: a week from the start of 2020 and I have finally finished painting three miniatures. An abysmal annual effort, but truly a reflection of how poorly engaged I have been with the hobby this year. In truth, it all ties in with the work and living situation here in California.

The reality is that I haven't had a space for the hobby. Our current place is rather small, and with space being at a premium, I cannot very well ask the wife to surrender some of that for little toy soldiers. So the bulk of my entertainment has come from playing video games and reading this year. On the topic of reading, might I heartily recommend Winston Churchill's "My Early Life: 1874-1904". I found the book a joy to read and a gateway to many a conflict. I know that I, for one, am keen to look further into the North-West Frontier and Sudan War thanks to this book. Read it.

An excellent book, very easy to read.

I might also mention that the heat and dryness here in the San Joaquin Valley makes for weather that is not particularly conducive to painting. When the sun is out and the hounds are keen to play, who am I to say otherwise? Only now that we have hit the rainy, cold season do I find myself in the mood to paint. That said, now that I have indeed put brush to miniature, I find myself inspired once more to get that "hour a day" in before bed. Hence the Germans above, and the Soviet Naval Infanteer lurking behind them.

One does not simply ignore these two.

In other news, I have been back to Britain twice this year, and have both times ferried quantities of miniatures and paints back with me. Having brought much lead over at the end of October, I had the makings of motivation, it just took a particularly miserable run of weather to convince me to build a rather nice little paint station my wife got me for my birthday back in June, and we were off to the races. I would highly recommend on of these handy little things to all my friends, it is very movable and surprisingly sturdy. Click on the picture to go to Amazon to see the GameCraft Miniatures Painting Station - 26mm V2, for Vallejo and Army Painter Style Dropper Bottles. Highly recommended.

Not all heroes wear capes...

Truly this paint station has been a lifesaver for me and has enabled me to get back to painting. I only hope that I can make a better effort in 2020 than I did this year. With that in mind, I look forward to creating more content for this website and the YouTube channel in the coming few weeks. However, until then, I wish all my dear readers a Merry Christmas, and I look forward to serving you better in 2020.

Painting Tutorial: Tabletop Workshop Stable 28mm

This is the latest video I have uploaded to YouTube, at the request of a subscriber, showing how I paint my medieval buildings. I hope that viewers might find it helpful.

Genestealer Done, Getting Back To Painting

My wife and I returned from our Highland adventure on Monday. It was a colossal drive from Inverness to Oxford, consuming most of our day just sitting in the car. Hardly how one chooses to spend a bank holiday, but frankly Scotland is worth it. While the West was celebrating Easter last Sunday, we were only on Palm Sunday, so this coming Sunday is our Pascha (Easter) and I cannot wait! It probably trumps Christmas as our family's biggest celebration of the year.

In the meantime, in the dark depths of the underhive, another wretched forerunner of Hive Fleet Leviathan stirs. I managed to knock out the genestealer below in a single evening, and I rather enjoyed it. I didn't spend an inordinate amount of time on this monster, but the results are pleasing. Sorry for the poor pictures, I just grabbed these on my camera when it was done. 

For my painting recipe I followed some of the YouTube videos from Warhammer TV, again, I cannot emphasise enough what a great resource that channel has been.

I've moved on to some other miniatures now, a couple of English Civil War test figures, a fighting Greek Priest from the Greek War of Independence, and the Primaris Ultramarines are on the table. I've recaptured my painting mojo recently, and am really enjoying being back, brush in hand.

Dreadball Marauder Jack Complete

The other night I finally completed another of these blighters. I am not going to sugar coat it, these miniatures are awful. The detail is poor and the pose is dreadful. 

So, it is no surprise that I haven't put the usual effort into this "playing piece," I simply didn't enjoy painting it.

Anyway, another miniature done, so there is at least some satisfaction. My wife and I are up in Scotland for the Easter weekend, so there will be no painting for me this weekend. 

Space Hulk Blood Angel Terminator

As part of my painting meanderings, I decided to paint a Blood Angel terminator from the Space Hulk board game. I have yet to play the game, but my notion is that any miniature painted for the board game can be used in Warhammer 40,000 anyway. 

To that end, I will be basing these once I have done the lot. Having done a dry fit, I know that they will fit on 40mm terminator bases with a little minor surgery. I followed a handy painting tutorial from Warhammer TV for the power armour. 

The recess shading is something I am a big fan of. The rest of the miniature was painted using, with some minor adjustments, the older Blood Angel painting tutorial from Warhammer TV.

This YouTube channel is one of my absolute favourites, and I have added loads of handy tricks to my painting repertoire by just watching these videos. Most of the tutorials will teach you how to get the most out of a triad and wash combination, and the hosts are very good. So even if a video title isn't necessarily something you are interested in, go ahead and watch it any way, you might learn something useful.

I tried my hand at some freehand for the text on the scrolling, this marine is festooned with the word "IRA" Latin for wrath or anger. His greave scroll has "BAAL" on it, for the home planet of the Blood Angels, but I will likely need to fix this as I am not 100% happy with it at the moment. The surface isn't flat, so that complicates the freehand. I don't normally try and do freehand text, so this is new territory.

At the moment this terminator looks very bright, I think the addition of a base will really help tone it down by contrast. I'll be looking to do an industrial style basing with steel flooring of a sort. 

Primaris Ultramarine Test Figure

I have been getting a lot more painting done over the last few weeks, my Twitter account has been evidence of this. I suppose that the reason has been that I have simply painted what I have felt like painting. 

Several weeks ago my wife and I were enjoying a day out in Oxford when we dropped in to the Games Workshop store there. Now, as a rule I avoid Games Workshop stores. I find the sales manner of the staff off-putting, and knowing that I can buy the same products from my local gaming store for a small discount, leaves very little reason to shop there. Still, it was an opportunity to catch up on the changes to the ranges, as I haven't been keeping up on what has been happening in the Games Workshop-sphere.

I spotted a £25 starter kit called "First Strike" and had to have it. My wife/chancellor of the exchequer agreed I could splash out, since I haven't spent much on wargaming recently, and a few days later I stopped by an independent stockist and picked the box up for 15% less than the Games Workshop store. 

I will express my thoughts on the boxed set in another post/video, but I thought I would share the first completed Primaris Marine. Excellent miniature, and finally a Space Marine in "True Scale". Suffice to say, I am looking forward to painting the rest of the miniatures from the box. 

I decided to paint the Space Marines as Ultramarines because I figure that if I were ever to add to the Primaris Marines I would likely get Roboute Guilliman. It also gives me an opportunity to try a slightly different scheme from the one I have employed with my Horus Heresy Ultramarines. I want there to be a tonal difference between the 30th and 40th Millennia. 

As you can see from the side-by-side photos, the 40k Marine is darker in tone, whereas the 30k Marine is brighter. I like to think of the 30th Millennium as a more hopeful epoch, humanity is at its zenith after Ullanor, the Great Crusade is drawing to a close, the Imperium triumphant. By contrast, the grim-dark 40th Millennium is more desperate and humanity on the knife edge of extinction. These colours hopefully reflect that difference, or perhaps it is all in my mind. 

Oh, and I must add that of course the Primaries Marine is missing his transfers and basing. This will be done once I have done the lot and have decided on what sort of basing scheme I want to employ.

Redarg Bloodfane, Exalted Deathbringer of Khorne WIP

I've recently started painting again, and I spent some time on repainting this figure. I began painting him several months ago as part of the Gorechosen boxed game. However, as some point I applied Reikland Fleshade to all of the miniatures, and to my horror, it dried glossy. It seems that I, in a fit of genius, had bought the gloss version of the shade, because I didn't know Games Workshop manufactured gloss shades. I felt quite foolish and somewhat crestfallen by the experience and so the models have been left untouched since. 

I've started by repainting the skin on Redarg, and I tried tinkering to get the scars just right. Almost there I think, perhaps just a final touch of Pallid Wych Flesh to a few spots required. 

Genestealer Neophyte Hybrid Test

I managed to knock this miniature out over the course of the evening. Looking to mix a penal-mining-colony orange with the purple carapace colour of Hive Fleet Leviathan. The aim will be to do a Genestealer Cult detachment that is twinned with a Leviathan Tyranid force set on a penal mining colony. Opposition would be Deathwatch, primarily, as I already have the requisite miniatures. In terms of basing I am going to do this faction in an urban-industrial style to match my Deathwatch.

 

The final result look pretty decent, zoomed in pictures ruin the look a little. The orange looks a little brighter in person, and the highlights less ludicrous. Nice figure to work on. At the moment I am painting a little of everything as I am aiming for painted kill teams for various factions. I'd like to play very small scale narrative adventures, akin to Inquisitor.

2017 Painting Tally

Talk about a fail-year...

1 Dreadball Ork Blocker

2-man Polish Light Mortar Team

2-man Polish Sniper Team

1 Genestealer

That's the lot. Nothing to see here, move along citizen.

Genestealer: A Test Gribbly

I've been quietly working away at various bits and pieces on the painting desk, I've been trying to get an hour in here and there, but I must confess that I have been spending an inordinate amount of time on playing Skyrim. So immersive.

I have, however, managed to get my first Genestealer done. This is one from the Lost Patrol boxed game, a rather old kit, but not too shabby.

I decided to paint my Tyranids in the colours of Hive Fleet Leviathan, as I find the pallid skin contrasts nicely with the purple carapace and the overall effect is rather striking when combined with an urban basing style, which is what I intend to do.

So this is just the first model. I've started base coating the rest of the Genestealers, but I think I shall extend the purple up to the wrists as I think that the arms should really be "sleeved" in carapace.

Poland 1939: Action near Dukla Pass After Action Report

Below is a video of the section level game I played solo using a modified version of Operation Squad: Evolution. The briefing is here. The basic Operation Squad mechanics were used with only the addition of card driven activations to make the game more solo friendly. 

After a faltering attempt at forming a base of fire, the Gebirsjäger MG34 team and a supporting team were mauled by Polish resistance. After seeing four of his man fall, Obergefreiter Martin Reiter decided to call it a day and withdraw until heavier force could be applied to the farm and dislodge the Poles. 

Reiter lost four men permanently, lost or missing, and three will sit out the next battle. In addition, he lost his MG34 in the retreat. There isn't a replacement for now. 

Plutonowy Andriy Kohut is the man of the hour, the hero of Dukla Pass. As the Germans retreated he and his men withdrew from the farm, as the German advance has overwhelmed the Polish resistance in other sectors. Father Marius of the church in Barwinek has approached Kohut's platoon commander and begged him to help recover the relics of a local saint that were stolen by the advancing Germans. 

All of this was generated using a combination of Platoon Forward and At the Sharp End by the TooFatLardies, and sets us up for next scenario, where the Poles will be launching an attack of their own!