Back Once Again, Like Indigestion...

Wow! Is it really three weeks since I put finger to keyboard here?

Well, I apologise, but I have been exceedingly busy, painting for clients on average 11 hours per day and at weekends, I've been working on getting my ECW all sorted and ready to go to the painter of choice, which whilst it sounds easy has literally taken me a month.

You see, I am a martinet, a dyed in the wool, mercurial aesthete of the worst kind when it comes to my ECW figures. I have bought, sifted, sold on and replaced, until I have a nice and (to me) aesthetically pleasing selection of models.

The majority of the foot are Warlord metal models which are a pain in the arse because you have to stick headgear on them all. I went with Warlord for the dragoons too, as they are a nice looking unit, but the sculptor seems to have a thing about having them charging, swords drawn like the fucking Blues & Royals. Obviously he had a Naseby fixation, but generally, I prefer my dragoons looking like lurking, slouching scum of the earth types, who'd rather be at home in the Fens, reading the bible or shagging sheep. That's how dragoons should look.

Last week, the mood took me to knock out a little vignette for my baggage train:

It's titled 'Come back, I love ewe...'

I'm also working on another using a mix of Foundry and Warlord parts, depicting a musketeer in the classic English hooligan pose, which involves running backwards, whilst shouting 'come on you bastards...' and kicking out.

I also painted the Non-Conformist preachers which will be peppered throughout the army:

He'll be painted in an orange uniform as the archetypical 'Essex Boy':

I've also been picking up old games which we either played in the 80s, or which we threatened to, but never did.

First up, is the live action game of assassination, 'Killer' by Steve Jackson Games, which I've bought in both the 1st and 2nd editions:

The 1st ed has arrived, but the 2nd is in the post.

I also bought the farm - quite literally, from EM4 Miniatures, who offer a rather nice, ready to use 'Medieval' farm in 28mm for a very reasonable £91, post free.

Yesterday, the memsahib and I, spent the day spraying up 280 28mm horses and cutting and mounting almost 80 ECW banners to poles. Hard work, but another step closer to the completion of this year's project:

I'm pretty mush tapped out for the year now as I've committed to a 4 figure painting bill which I don't mind, because there are no shows and frankly the fact is, I'd rather be asking and own a large ECW collection, than be skint and have a pile of unpainted lead.

My only other purchase has been another 42 old plastic skeletons to increase my already ludicrously large pre slotta/80s undead army.

To be honest, whilst I am as eclectic as ever, I'm more inclined to simply have one truly expensive project for a year and that's it, with one or two smaller diversions over the year to create the illusion of liquidity over my ten month 'campaign season'. I don't buy anything in November & December as I like to pay for Christmas from my pocket rather than on credit.

My ECW project has rounded out thus:

Sundry command stands

4 wagons

9 guns & crew

9 36 man infantry regiments

2 12 man dragoon units, mounted, dismounted and including horse holders

12 12 man cavalry units

12 train guard

In the first quarter of 2021, I plan to increase the foot and horse unit count by 33% and then that's it for the New Model Army.

I have a hankering for a Catholic Irish force for the 1640s/50s, but I am not settled on that at this point, so that may or may not actually come to pass. I'm a pretty contented gamer at present.

The only thing which is really getting under my skin is building and gaming with Japanese mecha kits in 1/100 scale. In particular, the Xabungle range which I remembered when I ordered the old 'Toon' RPG by Steve Jackson Games the other day. 

Let me explain...

Games Workshop in the very early 80s and up to probably 1985 was a different place, one which the overweight pseudo-bearded youth of today would not be able to exist in, because frankly, they would be eaten alive by the staff for starters... It was no place for Snowflakes or smart arses, as I and others who were in our early teens in 1981 can tell you.

But, GW also sold some great things in those days:

Video games and computers

Electric water pistols with sound effects

The Fighting Fantasy polystyrene dungeon (yes, it DID exist, before you message me to say it was a myth) which was made of the same stuff as the Mighty Fortress)

And, the Xabungle range of mecha kits by Bandai

We'd already been introduced to Macross kits by the late and much missed Peter 'Greblord' Armstrong the resident painter and sage of all things cool and fantastic in GW Sheffield. When GW stocked the Xabungle range, Pete had us hooked like Zartian Gullible Flounders, and so began my love of the sometimes quirky but still 'sweet spot' mecha kits.

I recall that he converted a 1/100 'Crab Type' mecha, so that a Ral Partha Halfling cavalry rider was sitting at the controls. Much mirth was had there.

They were pigs of models to put together, and so we tended to buy and build the Macross series of kits. Trust me, until you've seen a game with 30 or so 1/72 scale Macross kits you have not lived!

And so, when I fondly recalled those days, I got the urge to hunt them down again for purposes of purely selfish satisfaction.

Currently, I'm mulling it over, but I am tending towards the thought that it will be something I do over the winter months.

I've been thinking a lot about sheffield, and indeed the early days of my gaming initiation in the 81-84 period of late. I have distinct thoughts and emotions churning around at present, but I need to form them into something a little more structured before I write of the here. It will happen, but not quite yet, as I can't find a way to convey the world I witnessed and the sights, sounds and smells.

It was a truly different world, and one in which unlike today, gaming was somewhat subversive and 'underground'. I 'm saddened that so many will never experience the genuine thrill and cache of the early days of the hobby. Try as we might to recreate it, it's impossible because the whole environment politically, musically and culturally, was so different.

But, that's another story...

TTFN