Irish Warband

 Irish sea raiders were pillaging the coast of Saxon Britain long before the Vikings arrived, they later opposed the Viking incursions into Ireland and continued fighting alongside anyone who would pay them until well after the Normans appeared on the scene.  So a useful addition to any Dark Ages collection, sadly nobody ever made 54mm toys soldiers depicting Kerns or Gallowglass, so I gave them my own twist:

In the centre is a modern metal figure of an Irish Chieftain made by Del Prado, he needed a warband to follow him and that kickstarted this little project.  Irish warriors are depicted wearing predominantly ochre cloth (wool dyed with urine) so I used this colour liberally to pull the figures together as a unit.

They also used a hotchpotch of  weaponry and armour, when they had them, so this allows considerable licence when selecting figures and converting them, the chap centre front is throwing a dart, a uniquely Irish weapon of the period.

Wealthier warriors and sub-chieftains were better armed and armoured than the hoi-polloi so I've included a few of these.  They won't win any prizes for historical accuracy but were fun to paint and being of Irish heritage myself I have a certain fondness for them.

Elastolin style trenches

 Following on from the previous post, here is a command post I made many years back in the style of the old Elastolin modular trench sections:

For many years (more like decades!) I had been bidding at various auctions on original Elastolin entrenchments but without any success.  It's not that they're rare, they come up all the time, it's just that they are desirable and always sell for silly money.  So I decided to make my own.

Based roughly on an original model from the 1930's the basic structure is formed from polystyrene packing, the whole thing then covered in papier mache and sprinkled with sawdust for texture.  The entrance posts and lintels were provided by the stick from a firework rocket and the steps just cardboard folded into a concertina shape.  The paint scheme follows the original, an overall wash of earth brown with a drybrush of grass green and the odd highlight of drybrushed yellow.

The only problem is storage, the figures are 7cm tall so it's a big old piece of kit and the only place I can find for it at the moment is balancing rather precariously on top on another glass display case!

Shell craters

 Feeling the need for some crafting therapy I cast around the projects I've started over the years but left unfinished, there were plenty to choose from.

Motivated by the recent acquisition of some rather neat First War tanks I opted to finish the shell craters I started before lockdown.

Several years ago I started making modular trench sections in the style of the old Elastolin accessories, (they've still yet to be completed) and these shell craters were to be  an addition to the project.

The wooden tanks are decorative items, artisan made, in a small workshop which I have been unable to track down.

The figures are mostly conversions of Armies in Plastic and various Cherilea bits, the explosion is a resin recast of an original Elastolin item. 

This is how they started life, various sized circular lids glued to cardboard and bulked out with polystyrene packing chips (this was as far as I got before getting bored first time around), an irregular shape built up with air drying clay, the outer walls given a coat of PVA glue then a mix of sawdust with scatter sprinkled over the top.  I gave the crater a coat of  burnt umber with a wash of black around the inner walls to simulate the heat of the explosion and dry brushed grass green over the sawdust on the outer slopes, the centre painted dark grey to represent pooled water.

Already feeling better for having achieved something.

Something to aim for?

 The last post elicited some very helpful feedback about basing which I have taken on board.  While going through this thought process it occurred to me that I already had some figures mounted on poker chips with a mix of flock and scatter so broke them out for a look.

These are mostly Barzo resin toy soldiers, physically they look rather slight but their poses have a wide gait, so I mounted them on poker chips for added height, also the larger diameter accommodates the spread of their legs and provides good stability.

I do like the flock effect, I just don't like it to be overemphasised, these woodland Indians should probably have had purely grass covered bases to suit the terrain they operated in, but I prefer the more varied appearance of broken ground.

The figures themselves have been glossed to protect against handling but the bases are left matt, I think this combination works quite well.  The rifles on these Barzo figures are very prone to breaking so the stability of the larger bases helps protect them from toppling about on the table or in storage.

Note to self: must remember to paint those tree trunks!

The perennial problem of basing. It's boring I know!

I collect old toy soldiers, I wargame with 54mm toy soldiers, and I have got too much stuff.  Like everyone else I have too many collections, too many projects on the go and to be perfectly honest it's all become a bit of a mess.....actually it's a lot of a mess.

To impose some semblance of order on the wargame bit I plan to review what I've already got then for each period create initial core armies of 100 foot, 20 mounted and 2 guns.  These numbers were suggested by H G Wells as sufficient for a game, and this seems eminently sensible to me, when I reach the required numbers I will stop and move on to something else.  That's the plan, in so much as there is a plan.  Anyway it's the only plan I've got so with this in mind I broke out my Celts:

Here is the current foot contingent........and already we have a problem.  

I have sufficient toy soldiers to make up the requisite number of foot, the mounted are based, undercoated and awaiting paint, there are also enough bits waiting to be assembled into 2 war chariots. The figures hail from a number of manufacturers including Italieri, HaT, Cafe Storme and Expeditionary Force.

I started this project by painting up units of foot, then got bored and moved on to something else.  Then several superbly made units came up for sale and I couldn't resist the opportunity to jump start the project again.  The problem is integrating my existing figures on the smaller bright green bases above with the new acquisitions on larger flocked bases.

I always base my toy soldiers individually.  Here my old ones are on 2p coins while the new acquisitions are on flocked poker chips, so there is a noticeable size difference.  I don't get worked up about frontages and larger bases are fine for irregular troops but I do care about the overall appearance and want them all to look roughly similar as this pulls them together visually as a unit, also the new ones look like they are running across someone's carpet!

So what to do about this?  I don't think the new additions will give up their poker chips easily but I could probably scrape some of the plush flock back, at the same time fixing the older figures to washers which would give them a similar base size.  have I just answered my own question or can you think of a better solution?  All suggestions gratefully received.