Battleground 2017

Photo 'borrowed' from Battleground's FB page - taken very early

Being too ill to travel far or wide in the last five or so years has prevented me from attending any of the Battleground shows, but with the help of a friend offering transport, I was finally able to attend this excellent show.
The venue itself I thought was a bit out of the way, but didn't see to affect the numbers attending from what I could tell. We arrived sometime between 10.30am and 11am and left around 1.00pm, with the flow of people seemingly constant. The traders were all busy, but not so much that there were huge queues and there were also adequate spaces between the many games so that it never felt too crowded,

Stafford and District 19mm "Oudenard"

Super detail on such small figures

Huge 'poster' - those 28mm's are about 6" tall!

Fictional action somewhere in the Low countries

Beautifully painted 28mms throughout

Imperial v Hungarians 1848

 Sadly I only these two photographs of the Durham  Battle of Schwechat 1848 game - toy soldiers at their best !

 A Durham Wargames Group 40mms game

These huge 'placeholders' were an excellent addition and a great help

Overall view of the table

Intriguing game, but did seem a bit like re-inventing the wheel

General & Kings AWI Battle of Brandywine 1777

Great looking game superbly painted minis and...

...the game seemed to flow very fast too

Tyneside Wargames Group "Fall of Troy" (15mm I think)

Bells of St. Maria - Italian Wars Participation Game

 Those brave enough to have participation games on-going never seemed to get a break long enough for me to chat to, with a few noticeable exceptions from those games that had extra manpower.
The games overall were of a very high standard (unlike my photography) and I seemed to take hundreds of photos of which about half were 'OK' enough to use - I did have problems with my camera all day that didn't help with my usual camera-related incompetence.

Stunning 28mm figures and terrain

Lancaster Cellermen 17th C, siege using Spencer Smith figures

Gaming as I remember it - a very nostalgic game for me

View of the siege lines

I couldn't have said it any better...

Andre Wiley's new take on an old theme

New flat-pack houses he transported in a large envelope!

Redcar Ironsides WW2 -part 2 Yanks v Ruskies

I missed what this was all about - unfortunately didn't do anything for me

Independent Wargames Group ACW, using "Picket's Charge Rules

Great looking terrain, figures and vignettes all in 28mm

Durham Wargames Group ACW Battle of Port Republic in 28mm

Great terrain...

...at both ends of the table

Matt Crump's Assualt on Coastal Battery338 Folkestone

A busy participation game, using Bolt Action rules in 28mm

Brompton Bankers "Ronin" playtest, using 28mm figures, terrain etc.

Great looking game, in all respects

Iacta Alea Est "Battle of the Denmark Straits 1941 - the ships

The table - all very confusing to us landlubbers

Kriegspiel WW1

2mm "Irregular" figures

Scarbourgh WW2 participation game

Westerhope Wargames group's "Wellington in India"

Greta terrain and figures, all in 28mm

Great fortress too - I want one!

Nate Zettle's Blood and Plunder participation game

Great Schooner

Old Guard Wargmaes' 10mm ACW

So that was the 'eye candy' (- or at least what passes for it with my skills). I have photo-shopped the occasional bit in photos to eliminate the usual table clutter (dice, coffee cups, tapes,rules etc,) and in a few instances I've also added more 'table' to fill in otherwise unsightly bits of sports hall!
I'm also sorry that I'm sure that I've  missed a few games (the cup-cake game for one!) and there are  are no photographs of any traders either, but we all know what the latter look like right ?
I did have a rather modest haul of 10 figures, for Jimland,  three buildings for modern games (read Zombie) and a pot of flesh paint, for painting flesh.
To bore you even further here's their photographs:

Five explorer types and five Oryx - pretty boring huh ?

Two 'Shotgun' houses and a Diner (& spot the paint pot)

 Sorry for the long photograph heavy post, but you've probably looked through it all in less than five minutes and if you get anything from it, then it's been well worth the four hours or so that it's taken me to put it all together - my longest post ever!

That's it for this week, I've been pretty busy doing a lot of other stuff, so plenty to fill future posts with;  thanks once more for taking the time to look and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

Bugs and Bearers

Colouring from a Poison Dart frog

For once the tile doesn't refer to any bugs I may still have, but rather to the bugs and other beasties I've been working on for the last week or so.
I've had a pretty busy week by my standards, slowly building up from an hour's hobby related things to several hours over the week-end (something I rarely do!).
In addition to the five finished bugs, snakes and the frog (shown right) I've started other animals too.  The frog model is probably twice the size of its real-life counterpart!

Obligatory boring picture

As I said I started the week very slowly, cutting up plastic cards (the credit sized ones), kindly donated by friends and family. Gunge was added after the creatures were glued in place and undercoated with a cheap grey spray primer. I did notice that in my Halloween pack of bugs there were two distinct species of snake present, one obviously a hooded cobra and the other goodness knows - but it was different!

Another frog view

The only creepy-crawlie things I didn't get finished were a couple of spiders, due to time restricitions.
I also have found that I need the few daylight hours we currently have for painting and once t gets near twilight, I have to resign myself to either gunging, cutting, gluing etc.
Whilst stuff was drying I was also painting a little on the explorer figures, still on my paint-tray, but I;m getting there.
Here's some more pics (that's what most folk want - right ?)

The lesser-known blurry red Mexican Scorpion

Which loses its blurriness when scuttling away

Giant red ant, that turned out more brown than expected.

Also known for being blurry when running away.

One of the two finished snaked -  painted as a Gaboon Viper

Nile Cobra

Nile Cobra rear (safe view)

Four more bearers

I almost finished these four bearers, but ran out of daylight hours, there's not much left to do on them, just some detailing.
I thought I'd post them to just show I was still doing some figure painting.

Rear view to prove I don't just paint the front of figures.

Here's a photographs to show the comparable sizes of all this week's offerings:

The snakes are not far off from being a realistic scale for the figures

 And a photograph of the original critters and their painted counterparts:

I have about five of each of the above - not bad for £2 imo

Finally here's a photo of my paint-tray, showing it to be slowly emptying.

Yup it's a boring mess!

This week then has been one in which I've been getting progressively better and working on hobby-related things as and when I can - only interrupted by a single hospital visit! My  enthusiasm for this project is still unbounded as I work on getting more animals together; currently a Hippo, a Croc, a bear (yeah, I know) and another lion. I'm hoping to make Battleground this week-end and maybe pick up yet more animals.

That's it then, sorry for the poor quality photographs, but my photographer has been ill and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.