28mm Napoleonic Portuguese 

4ª Linha Regimento de Infantaria

Finally completed the 4 Regiment of Line Infantry for the Napoleonic Portuguese project. My intention is to build the Silveras Division, consisting of 8 Line Regiments and 3 of Cacdores, in addition to the 17th Line and 1st and 3rd Cacadores, who were part of General Robert Crawfurds Light Division.

I am now part way through painting the 10 Regiment, and will then need the 10 Cacadores to complete Campbells Brigade. Thereafter, I need to complete an additional 4 Line regiments and 2 more of Cacadores...and then I suppose they will need cavalry and artillery support! The full unit from above The Grenadier company and the right hand half of the unit The remaining three left hand elements

The entire unit shown from the rear

"Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me..…"

I left a list of suggested suitable birthday gifts for my family, and indicated that if they were intending to spend $20 or $30 on a book or something else I was not that bothered about one way or the other, they might like to consider investing their money in something I actually wanted for a change. Imagine my surprise when it worked out better than I could have imagined, and between them, my wife, daughter and son had purchased ALL the suggestions (bar one I think) that I had made!

Here is a pic of the loot, which should keep me gainfully employed for a few weeks, particularly as most of them are 28mm plastics that require assembly

Below are some images of a group of RCW figures I have had sitting on the painting bench for about six months. They are by Siberia Miniatures and are a female HMG team. The figures are "ok", not as nice as many 28mm these days, but not bad. I think they have come out quite well...the weapon in an MG 08

28mm Front Rank Napoleonic Portuguese

Not a very productive weekend I am afraid but I did finally get around to finishing off the command element for the 4th Portuguese Line Regiment, one of the units that comprised Campbells Brigade of Silveira's Division in Wellingtons Peninsula Army. Hopefully I will receive reinforcements for this collection shortly and be able to paint the rest of the unit, as well as the 10th Portuguese Line and 10th Cacadores, the other two units on this Brigades strength.

Here are a few images of these outstanding Front Rank figures....

But wait....there's more! 
15mm WW2 Brits Fresh Off The Painting Table

Here are the four 6lb AT Guns plus another four stands of WW2 British infantry. After a game a couple of weeks ago, and then checking the FoW website, I realized I had mistakenly used the "large" bases rather than the standard sized ones for my AT guns, so I had to rebase two onto the smaller size, and I do think they look better on these ones.

I have a couple more of these - crews are undercoated - and also have 16 more infantry and three prone HMG teams in the process of being painted this week.

More 15mm WW2 Brits from the Painting Desk

Possibly not very exciting, but these are all I have to work on at present so I am grinding my way through and do like to post about my progress!

 Below is what I have achieved so far with the free collection of unpainted 15mm troops donated by a friend - and this is probably only 60% of them...

Just off back out to the painting desk to finish off some more AT guns and crews, then start on the next platoon of 12 infantry!

Last night, John, Chris, Nick and I joined Julian for a Friday evening game of To the Strongest. I usually quite enjoy this ruleset but last night, we all seemed to suffer from atrocious luck with the cards. This affected us all equally (Julian failed to activate more than one or two units per turn on several occasions, our light horse archers defeated Templar knights in combat etc) so that no one had a particularly satisfying game I suspect! We ground our way through the action to the conclusion, which saw Nick and Chris win the game when they finally got rid of the last of our "morale coins" but an indication of how the game went was that throughout, we seemed to be matching each other coin for coin, so that the last move started off with our Muslim army outnumbering the Crusaders 4 to 3. They were just fortunate to get the right cards at the right time to win the game, as we could just as easily have done the same to them in the previous or following turn!

Anyway, we had a pleasant interlude of an hour over Chinese takeaways in the middle of the game and it was still all over by 2130 so it was still a good evening in excellent company.

Here are a few images of Julian's 15mm collection that we used for the action

 The Arab right wing commanded by John

 Opposing them, the Templar left, commanded by Chris

 The Templar right, commanded by Nick, opposed me, with Julian commanding the Arab centre.

 The point of the game was to seize control of the oasis in the centre of the table

 Above and below, the centre of the Arab army - horse archers and heavier cavalry

 John advanced rapidly with our right wing, driving off the first batch of Franks

 The centre advances towards the oasis...

 ...and are met by a wall of Templar horsemen

 In the top right, John has advanced right through the Templar line but is now isolated and surrounded as Chris turns a unit on the high ground to take the victorious Muslims in the flank/rear

 View down the length of the table midway through the game

 The Templars and Arab horse archers clash in the centre of the field

 Several Arab units evade the charge of the heavier Frankish knights

 The Templars follow up, pressing the Arabs back

 On the right flank, John takes a Templar unit in the flank

 A solid line of European soldiery

 A general view of the table as we neared the end of the game

 Templars driven off by Arab foot archers - next turn, they were destroyed by the same unit!

 Disordered Arab horse archers about to be charged and wiped out by Frankish cavalry to win the game for the Templars.

Final position on the left flank - a disordered unit of knights on the heights, next to one of my Arab units and confronted by another full strength unit of Arab heavy cavalry. If we had survived one more turn, I might have dispatched this unit and won the game for Allah!