The destruction of the Afrika Korps

 Spaniels and toy soldiers do not mix.  Yesterday, I stupidly left my box of Airfix Afrika Korps on the stairs while I attended to something else. Charlie Brown decided that he needed to go upstairs and Spaniels always take the most direct route as fast as they can.  In this case the Afrika Korps was in between him and his objective.  The result was carnage with the box travelling from top to bottom of the stairs.:

As can be seen, a good number of my type 1 Airfix figures have become casualties. Fortunately all of the tanks and vehicles are Roco Minitanks and they bounce quite well, with just the loss of a gun barrel, some machine guns and the odd windscreen.

What was interesting though was the obvious plastic rot that had reduced the so called unbreakable figures to their current state.

Fortunately I have spares and will be painting replacements.

Charlie Brown, banished to the garden and oblivious to the damage caused:

Airfix Grenadiers

 I have been thinking of ways of using the vast pile of Airfix British Grenadiers that sit in my collection.  I  decided to paint some as the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. I am not sure whether they would have worn the bearskin (racoon skin for ORs) in the field, but my troops, hot off the ship are heading straight into the woods.

Anyway, this lot adds another useful unit to my Airfix AWI collection:

Next will be some more Warrior and Les Higgins figures.

Sneakin' About! Airfix AWI

The mojo is still there, so I painted another US battalion using some of the advancing/creeping infantry. This will be the last lot for now as I need to work through some more Warrior French, although I am easily distracted! That said, I have half a dozen British Light Bobs on the painting table.

I do enjoy painting the old Airfix figures, which provide light relief one in a while:

Glorious Airfix

 One of the most enduring Airfix sets has got to be Washington's Army.  At one time (I believe) these figures were the only 20mm tricorne wearing troops available. They have served in the Prussian army, fought the Jacobites and British Grenadiers. They have been painted as french and Austrians. They are not very accurate and there are some odd poses, but they are charming and still of use for wargaming.

Over the weekend a dug a load out and painted one lot as British and another as Americans. Not very well painted, but they look OK at arms length and will join my other Airfix units:

What fun. I have been bitten by the bug and more figures will follow - maybe even a French regiment or two!

Some old pictures

 I was going through an old memory stick when I found some old pictures of Airfix 1/76 figures set in the Western Desert.  I must have painted these around 2009 when I was working overseas and had lots of spare evenings. They are a mix of Aifix 8th Army, Afrika Korps and the Bren Gun Carrier with 6pdr:

I think these old figures can be made to look quite attractive with a lick of paint.

Memoir '44 - British Infantry.

 To represent the British tommy in the game it is a difficult choice.  The game manufacturers do produce some British infantry, but they are dressed for the desert campaigns.  Fortunately I had a couple of boxes of the latest Airfix production, which was their rather odd WW2 British Infantry set.  I had no other use for these figures and so decided to paint some of them for use in some of the scenarios.  Strangely some of the figures are wearing their gas mask container on their chests, B.E.F. style, yet they have PIATs, which are late war items.

Anyway, splashed some paint on them, based them and here they are:

The last group to be painted will be some US airborne troops.  I have a number of choices but in the end settled on ESCI figures, largely because I have plenty in my spares box!

British infantry advancing in Normandy:

The Great Plastics Revival - Airfix Prussian Landwehr

Another couple of battalions roll off the production line.  On this occasion it is a pair of Airfix Prussian infantry.  The figures, painted as East Prussians, were painted from scratch after they had spent a couple of weeks bathing in Dettol to remove the old paint.

I am quite pleased with the results and tempted to paint another two units:

The Great Plastic Revival - Prussian Infantry

 The next batch of figures to be dusted off and rebased are the Prussian foot,  Consisting of Revell and Airfix figures they make quite a colourful contribution to the collection:

Next up will be the cavalry, after which I will turn my attention to the Russians.

Ersatz Japanese Infantry

 I think I mentioned earlier the imbalance in numbers between the Russians and Japanese forces.  I have now reorganised all of the Japanese and ideally, I could do with another two or three battalions.  Finding 20mm Japanese for 1905 is near impossible and so I turned to converting some plastic figures.  Here I have paint converted some Airfix and Emhar WW1 figures:

I think that they will look OK from a few feet away!

The Great Plastics Revival - Airfix Infantry

 Another couple of Airfix units, as I continue to work my way through the enormous plastic mountain.

This time it is a unit of Airfix 'Waterloo French Infantry', painted straight out of the box in basic French colours:

The second unit is of British infantry, again, straight out of the box, but with a Newline metal officer:

I continue to work through these figures in between other projects.

Those Pesky Airfix Horses

 For decades I have struggled with Airfix horses with the separate bases.  In the past I have tried various glues and eventually resorted to pinning the hose to the bases using metal pins.

Well, at last, I think I have found a solution.  I bought a tube of Loctite Vinyl, Fabric and Plastic Flexible Adhesive and used it on some onf my mounted Napoleonic commanders.  It works and provides a strong bond. I hope I now have a solution and will be able to use the mound of unemployed horses.

Here is the stuff:

The Bavarians arrive and some old favourites

 I have managed to sort out around half of the Bavarians - the easy ones.  The rest will require considerable work and there is a regiment of dragoons that will need a complete repaint.

Here are four infantry battalions:

Another quick task was the basing and touching up of two old favourites.  Some Airfix foot artillery:

And some Airfix French infantry:

I'm not sure what I will do next.  There's a lot of French infantry and artillery to do and large box of Austrians.  Further down the line I willl look at the Prussians and Russians.

The Great Plastics Revival 3 - French Cavalry

 The bank holiday provided the perfect opportunity to deal with one of the biggest projects of the plastics revival.  I decided to tackle most of the French cavalry.  They were in a bit of a state and some needed a bit of repair work and all required rebasing.  In all I found nine regiments. Here they are en masse:

Two regiments of dragoons (Italeri):

Two regiments of Airfix Cuirassiers:

HaT lancers and Italeri hussars:

HaT Guard Marmelukes and Horse Grenadiers:

And Italeri Cuirassiers:

There are another three or four regiments to paint, but these require quite a bit of work.

The Great Plastics Revival 2

 Some more figures have been tidied up and rebased:

Airfix British line infantry:

Some British light infantry, I think by Revell:

British heavy cavalry, by Revell, Hat and ESCI.

A brunswick brigade, figures by Hat:

The first of the Prussians, Airfix figures:

The Great Plastics Revival

 Over the decades our family has accumulated a huge collection of plastic Napoleonic figures.  They have been painted.organised and reorganised and repainted many times. The result of all this is that they have been dispersed and set aside as new projects took hold, or they were replaced by metal castings.

As a result of a mistaken purchase, I have decided to centralise all of the figures, repair and repaint where necessary and to use standard basing.  The mistake occurred when I was looking for some plastic French cavalry to go with my Les Higgins collection, until such time as I could find some metal originals. I put in a bid for some French Hussars and a few Riflemen that were going cheap on eBay.  I forgot about the bid until just before the auction closed and I thought, as I was the only bidder, I should take a look in more detail.  To my horror I could see why there were few bids, it was collection only.  Luck was on my side, however, as the location of the lot was about 5 miles down the road, phew!

I then looked at the description and realised that it was not just some cavalry and infantry, but a complete collection of over 1,500 figures.  My bid of around £20 looked too low but I remained the only bidder and won the collection, which is now sitting in my garage.  I am guessing that most other people failed to fully read the description and were put off by the 'collection only' condition.

To cut a long story short I now have an additional massive collection of painted plastic figures and it made sense to merge these with our existing holdings. As most were sitting dormant in attics and cupboards, the rest of the family were glad to shed their figures, no doubt grateful for the additional storage space.

So, there we are.  This little adventure has seen me painting and basing hundreds of figures and I thought I would share some pictires as I complete them.  First off figures from our original collection, repainted and baed.  Starting with some British:

Some Airfix Highlanders:

Airfix line infantry:

Revell Rifles:

More Airfix line infantry (with ESC! officers):

Revell line infantry:

Airfix British Hussars (I missed touching up some of the swords!)

I am working on some Bavarian battalions at the moment.  More pictures to come over the coming weeks.

The Rape of Piddlington - an AWI scenario

 Phil popped over for a couple of days, allowing us the opportunity to put some figures on the table and to play a game:

The peace and quiet of the tiny hamlet of Piddlington is shattered by the fateful cry, "The British are coming".  Unfortunately for Piddlington it has been chosen as an American weapons and ammunition storage site, that has come to the attention of the British commander.  He has ordered a small force to go and destroy the facility.  Word of the plan has reached the Americans and the local Piddlington militia has deployed and a request has been sent for reinforcements.

Soon the red coats of British grenadiers can be seen approaching down the long road leading to the settlement:

Aware of the experience of others of being ambushed in the wild country, the British commander deployed a couple of battalions on each flank to protect the main force, consisting of the commander, a field battery, the grenadiers and a second line battalion.

A Hessian battalion works its way along the left flank:

Meanwhile, the Piddlington town guard has deployed onto a rocky mound adjacent to the road, hoping they can delay the British until reinforcements arrive:

In the settlement itself is a battalion from the county militia and a light gun:

Seeing little opposition ahead, the British send the grenadiers forward to clear the mound, supported by the gun and the line battalion.  A brisk fight enshews and although the town guard take casualties they cling on and deny the grenadiers from taking the little hill.  The county militia move down the road to meet the threat, but suffer casualties from British volleys. After another turn, the county militia break and run from the field:

With nothing to stop them the two right hand British battalions continue to work their way around the right flank.

More American reinforcements arrive and the village is now quite strongly defended:

On the British left the Hessians and British battalion close on the outskirts of Piddlington.

The fighting on the approaches to Piddlington intensifies, with the Town Guard still managing to hold off the British grenadiers.  Two American battalions storm down the road and rout the British line battalion there, but lose one of their own in the process:

With the road clear the Americans charge down the British battery, but run into a hail of grapeshot and are shattered.

The Town Guard numbers fall every turn and having put up a heroic fight they crumble:

The battered British Grenadiers gain the mound, but come under fire from the village.

The British grenadiers decide to pull back from the summit of the mound and await reinforcements.

The Hessians arrive and the British gun moves up with the commander. Also on the British right the two battalions begin to engage the American left.

Although the Hessians are forced back by the American artillery, the other British battlion begins to engage the American gunners.

The British battalion on the left attacks and destroys the American gun.  The American left collapses as two British battalions attack the now thin defences.  Suddenly it is all over, as the American left disintegrates their exhaustion point is reached and the remaining American units pull out of the village.  

The British set about destroying the stores and set fire to the buildings.  The battle became known locally as 'The rape of Piddlington'.

For rules we use Command & Colors Tricorne, and the figures are mostly Airfix plastics, with some other brands thrown in. This proved to be a very enjoyable game.