Fishguard Fort

It's been a bit quiet around here lately, and thats mainly because I've been off on my Travels again, this time to Pembrokeshire in south wales.  The first military site we visited we actually found by acident as we drove through fishgaurd.

Fishgaurd fort was built around 1780 in response to a pirate raid and was maintained until the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815. It origanlly had 8 guns of which 4 remain today, and was crewed by three 'invalid gunners' from woolwich. I'm not sure what invalid gunner means and how effective they would have been at defending fishguard!

As well as the gun emplacement one building, which looks like a magazine remain mostly intact and there are two walls of another building remaining (possibly the barracks).

Airfix Small Scale HMS Victory

For a bit of a change I have something for you today that has nothing whatsoever to do with middle-earth.  We have infact an airfix model of HMS Victory, it doesn't say what scale on the box (more than a tad annoying), but it is the smaller cheap version (it costs little more than a fiver).

It's a VERY simple kit with under 20 pieces total, and it shows.  I think the end result is unsatisfying, but I'm not sure what else I could do to improve it that much.  In the end it is tempting me to buy a bigger kit and do the ship justice.

 

One of the most annoying parts of this model is the utter lack of rear detail, which is just covered up with a transfer.

The Ninth Wave - A Bit of Fantasy

My first wave of reinforcements for my WW2 Royal Navy Fleet in a while today.  This is a wave with a difference though as none of the ships actually fought in the war, five of them were never finished and one carrier was finished post war.  They do have rules in victory at sea though so will be useable in 'what if' games or if I'm just trying to be competative (as they're all rather good).

First off two N3 or Saint class battleships that were cancelled due to the limitations of the washington naval treaty, they're very powerful game wsie and I'm looking forward to trying them out.  I've christened mine HMS St. George and HMS St. Andrew

These are two Lion class battleships, an improved version of the King Goerge V design, mine have been christened HMS Lion and HMS Thunder.

These are two large fleet carriers, on the left is HMS Malta, a very large carrier cancelled at the end of the war, if she were finished she would have been even bigger than the American Essex class carriers.  On the right is HMS eagle which formed a core part of the post war fleet.

I've also painted a couple of other almost random ships, first off HMS Victory, Nelsons famous ship.  I've painted this as she's technically still in comission so I need her in my aim to collect the current Royal Navy.  It was a pain to assemble and paint and doesn't even look that good, if I ever move to Napoleonic naval wargaming it will have to be in a bigger scale.

And finally the Italian cruiser Bolzano, after her projected conversion to an air defense ship.  My freind bought this for his Italian fleet and I thought it was so different and interesting that I had to have one too.

Napoleonic 1:72 Scale Airfix Prussians

As a sort of appendix to my recent post on my Napoleonic British army today I'm showing a small brigade of allies for that army.  It's only 2 battalions of Prussian Landwehr, the models are also from the airfix waterloo box set.  I reckon they're the best models in the set, by quite a long way and I really enjoyed painting them.  The mounted officer is from the same italeri officer set that the senior officers from the British army came from.  I have a copy of the Revell Prussian line infantry set sat on my shelf waiting to be panited, and hopefully they'll join these at some point.

Army Focus - Napoleonic British

This is the first in a new series of articles in which I will introduce some of my armies, several things recently have made me realise that only two full armies (my warhammer dwarfs and my zulu war british) have actually been featured, as I tend to post what I've just done rather than models from my collection.  Anyway I intend to remedy this with this series of articles.  I will inevitably feature my armies that are in a better state first (some haven't been touched by a paint brush in a decade and are frankly appaling), to kick things off I'm going to have a look at my small Napoleonic British army in 1:72 scale.  I've dug this army out as crusader publishing have kindly sent me a PDF of their new 'March Attack' Napoleonic wars rules to try out, I've only had a quick look so far and they seem to be designed for 15mm forces rather than my 1:72nd scale troops, but still I think that'll be a minor issuse and I'm looking forward to giving them a go.

The army deployed for battle

Christmas 2009 saw me being given the airfix waterloo set as a present,  and that basically lead to this army.  I still haven't painted everything from that set yet which as well as the British included (which I've painted maybe 2/3rds of) a few Prussians (which I have painted), a French army (which hasn't been touched yet), a farmhouse (sort of done) and a couple of karts and farmyard accessories (painted).  This was given to me not long after I bought my first 1:72 scale zulu war figures and I was still in awe at the possibilties that historical figures were presenting to me.

The Senior officers

I took the decision with this army not to be too specific, unlike my other historical projects none of the troops in this army are painted to represent any specific regiments, this is so it will be easier for them to fight any number of enemies or ally with prussians or spainish gurrillas or whatever.  This wouldn't be to everyones taste, but the Napoleonic wars are so vast and I don't want to limit myself or have to paint a vast number of figures.

The Royal Horse Artillery

The core of the army are the airfix models from the waterloo set, but they're not fantastic looking models (the hussars in particular suck) and I've suplemented the army with officers, infantry and riflemen from italeri and some heavy dragoons from HaT.

The Infantry

So what's the future plan for this army?  Well I have a LOT of models still to paint, I think I need to do another couple of regiments of basic infantry and another couple of cannons next, but really I probaly need to paint some French so they have someone to fight.

Heavy Dragoons

The Baggage