Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy Issue 112

 Hello There! I have recently received my complementary copy of the above magazine after having a couple of features published in it.

The feature on the battle of Medina de Rioseco comes from a renewed interest in the Peninsular War. The availability of figures for the Spanish army and reading about the experiences of Spanish forces has opened up a completely new view of this area to me. It is really well illustrated with figures from the Perrys collection and sets it off really well.

The other is a continuation of my previous feature on highlighting and shading yellows and reds on wargames figures and covers white. This comes from the first Austrian Napoleonics I have painted and what I finallt settled on for their painting.

I hope these features are of help to the gamer and I am currently working on a mini campaign of three battles again fought in the Peninsular. 

Spanish Ladies

Hello There! I have not been very well recently and I have tried to complete some painting to help me along. I have added so Spanish 28mm ladies from the Perrys Carlist Wars range. The Carlist war was not long after the Napoleonic Wars finshed so I felt their dress was not too far removed from the period I required.

I have painted these using Vallejo paints with an airbrush of brown and a spray varnish to finish. They are based on two pence pieces with some magnabase as well.

The poses are useful and generic. I used the illustration on the Perrys site as a guide and added Cotwold Buff chippings and sand to the base.

The figures can either be 'fluff', (Thanks Chris!), for larger games or pieces for the skirmish project I amm working on.

It made a change to be able to do different shades and colours for a change and not be restrictd to the basic uniform colours for a change. I am pleased with the airbrushing as well. Subtle and effective.

I may use the pale cream shawl colour again as it could be an effective white for future uniforms with a few small tweaks.

There is also a pack of Spanish male civilians which are on the painting table at the moment and I yhope will soon take their place alongside these figures.

French Dodge Tanake

Hello There! Here are some photos of a vehicle I completed a while ago. I have a number of these and their companion, the 'Conus' 75mm MLE 1897, from Readyto Roll vehicles, here.

The model is made of resin and the figures are from SHQ.

I found the casting 'rough' in places but this was easily remedied. The base is part of the casting and I have added a sheet of magnabase to aid storage as well. I have added a few items to hang on the sides from Skytrex and SHQ.

W J Rawkins-Military Uniform Bookseller and Bookseller.

 Hello There! I have recently heard that Mr W J Rawkins has sadly passed away a few days before Christmas.

Mr Rawkins owned a military Book shop in St Giles Street and later in Pottergate in Norwich. As a teenage wargamer I would visit the Games Room in Elm Hill and W J Rawkins bookshop with my wargaming friend, John.

We were both into WW II and Napoleonics and 'Rawkins' was the highlight of the day. In the days before the internet you had few alternatives. You could either write off for a catalogue from Hersant Books or go to Salute, at Kensington Town Hall, once a year.

Among the fantastic range of military books on offer were a substantial range of Napoleonic books. With these were a series of softback pamphlets on uniforms of the Austrian army, The Duchy of Warsaw and many Confederation troops. The amount of research that went into these was very large indeed. In the eighties the Osprey books on French Line and Light infantry and the first publications on the Austrian army, from Osprey, had not arrived yet.

Rawkins publications offered all you needed to know about the subject with an easily remembered tall text.

Since then the books shops have now long gone and I discovered W J Rawkins again on the internet under 'The History Book Man'. The publications had now been greatly expanded and the subjects covered had expanded to over twenty volumes.The French Regiments Etrange and Confederation troops now included many different volumes and they were all available on CD.

As I find it difficult to read directly of the screen I have to print off each publication but you can see that each CD can come with a self adhesive label. These CDs are completely revised and now have many colour illustrations as well.

I cannot put into words the amount of research that has gone into these works. I feel he has made a massive contribution to the wargaming world and I hope his work will again be available.

I would like to send my condolances to his family and hope they are not hindered in their mourning by the situation caused by the pandemic.

Airfix Scammel Tank Transporter

 Hello There. It is now the New Year and I hope you all had a nice holiday. Unfortunately we are now in another lockdown which this time has a very uncertain ending. With the pandemic now out of control in this country we are now back to our homes and finding ways of  keeping ourselves occupied.

I have started doing some 'extra' shifts at the hospital I work at, so posting on here maybe a little more random and infrequent but I do have a number of painting jobs coming to fruition which will appear on this blog.

First is an example of the Airfix Scammel tank transporter painted in desert colours. It is intended for use in the desert tank recovery game I have been working on for a while.

The models are glued to a 0.8mm plywood base which has magnabase underneath. Each wheel has a piece of coffee stirrer under it so the wheels do not appear to be sinking into the sand. The base then has a layer of tile adhesive with PVA, stones, gravel and sand. A paint, wash and dry brush and we are all done.