A few of the pictures from a number of games taken on the Blackberry when the Digital SLR was left at home through sheer stupidity......For a phone not bad on some and worse on others.

Artillery Command Stand where I have now redone the face of the mounted officer as it annoyed me.........

61st Regt of Ligne Command Base

Some of the artillery

Prince Jerome Bonaparte of II Corp and his underlings



The laying out of Hougoumont was done on the weekend and now some final drybrushing and weathering and it can be glued down ready for all of the basing materials and gardens and trees to be completed.

All of the photos I have seen of Hougoumont showed a rise in the ground from both the north and south gates towards the chateau itself. We have used 3mm MDF cut with a jigsaw to step the ground up and when the filler and ground cover are put in place it should represent a gentle rise from the north gate and a sharper rise from the south gate toward the chateau.

The image in my head of what this will look like when completed is amazing and as I have seen quite a few representations of Hougoumont I think this one will be up there with the best.

Two years has just flown by but progress albeit slow is being seen.......

Cancon in Canberra on the Autralia day weekend should be an opportunity to stock up on some more terrain goodness.

I thought it was about time to stick some pictures up of units that were photograhed about 5 years ago. Its funny how your painting style changes but I think I have gotten better, but some of my nicest units came from a time when I lived in a basement. Enjoy

Dutch 1st Carabiniers

 
Prince of Orange
 
Belgian 2nd Carabiniers

It had to happen sooner or later. The French II Corp rounded up the supply wagons and packed up and headed to Goulburn for the Bi Annual Australian Napoleonic Congress. The photos below are from the games I was involved in. Please enjoy. My command stand of General Husson won the award for Command Stand in 28mm in the painting competition as well which was a bonus.

On the First Day the French routed the Spanish in detail in Game 1 using 'General de Brigade' rules and in Game 2 on Sunday they had a hard task attacking a hill using 'In the Grand Manner' rules. A great two days gaming and some lovely eye candy to stare at on the other tables. Richards Spanish Lancers were superb.

 1st and 2nd Legere advance assisted by 1st and 2nd Ligne in reserve with Pajols Cavalry on the heights

 The view from behind the '6th Lancers of Pajols 2nd Cavalry Division' across the remainder of II Corp

 A regiment advances towards the hill facing cannister from turn 2 by the entrenched Spanish

 The left Brigade heading towards the hill...

5th Infantry Division under Bachelu from II Corp advances to the right of Jerome Bonapartes 6th Division.

Back to the Project in the next few weeks with an update on Hougamont on the cards as we are close to getting that glued down on its base.

Ciao
Colin

Wargaming Shed Update

Well its been awhile........The Winter provided some respite from the labours of running 20 acres of kangaroos, wombats and rabbits. So the shed is almost finished with the workbench in, beer fridge in and stocked and the fireplace installed and operational. Two weekends ago Matt came up for a session of basing all of the figures that had been finished over Winter and some plans in place for gaming tables to fill the void.

The shot of the table where Matt was knocking out the completed units, shows about half of what we had done over the weekend. The large French clock is now in place above the figure cabinets and the remainder of the shots are of the workbench and 1st and 2nd Legere being finalised.

Ciao Colin

The games shed is almost finished.......yay

After a number of months of inactivity and many thousands of dollars being spent the games room is almost complete. It has been a mammoth task and over the next month or so the fixtures should be finalised to enable full production of the terrain tables needed for the project.

The view here is from the middle facing west and as you can see it has its own bar fridge, kitchenette and a toilet and handbasin within the enclosed area. The triple ranch sliders are in and the last piece of construction is placing the awnings up on the exterior to protect the doors from the weather. I also acquired a wood burner and flu kit which will be installed at the back RH side near the ladder so in winter the whole area can be heated.

This is the view east and is the other half of the shed, with cupboards and bookcases ready to be mounted against the far wall.

This last picture shows the middle area on the south facing wall which is where the workspace will be for the painting area and left of that the photography studio for the mammoth project of photographing each of the units done to date. Hopefully after January that task can start and the updates will become more regular.

Happy hobbying

Colin

May Madness

Well it has been a month or two but we have actually achieved some forward momentum.

I finally completed undercoating the buildings and Matt has started with the base layer of colour as you can see from the pictures. We are now working on the mechanics of creating the rise of the ground within the walls of the farm, as the Chateau was on higher ground than the south gate, Three failed attempts and we have decided on mdf 6mm board cut to shape to give the centre of the farm the elevation needed.

A trip to Auckland last week allowed me to stock up on a lot of nice terrain, thank you Wayne for your patience as we trapesed all over town from hobby shop to hobby shop to top up on Silfor and a whole lot of Noch bits and pieces that will make the formal gardens look the part as well as the forests to the front of the farm.

I finished a basic light box for photographing the units as they are completed and have just purchased the lights and tripod so will have a day of photography to start getting the units up on the blog in the not too distant future.

The first effort of photography without lights and the camera flash proved to be a bit disappointing but the next photo's will be much clearer with the new lights and tripod to keep the camera from shaking. If you cant tell what it is it is my first French Limber team being the Old Guard Foot Artillery carrying a 12pdr into action.

Next step is to finish painting Hougoumont and to get it based onto the new board.