Bit of a bargain...

I can't remember where I first saw these but one of my fellow bloggeratti highlighted what a bargain these were, so I decided to follow suit and splash the cash ... 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161353954574?_trksid=p2060778.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Yes... they really are £3.37, for 20 trees, and post free from China! I have no idea how they do it..!

A mere week and a bit later - a padded envelope arrived with the following in it..

Which when unpacked, translated to the following..

Bit rough and ready, but when I think back to the monstrosities we used when I first started gaming back in the early 70's* absolutely excellent

 *at one point it was considered optimal to use pine cones covered in flock as pine/fir trees!

This time with a 25mm figure for scale..

So having cleaned up the bottom of the base (chopped it off with a sharp blade), I raided the mites piggy banks for a fist full of 2p's and set to work with a hot glue gun# and ended up with the following...

# what an amazing piece of kit - first time I'd used one, and purpose made for the job.. just lay the bottom of the tree on it's side in the middle of the 2p, big blob of hot glue on the bottom of the tree, and stand the tree up for the glue to cool..  you end up with the tree anchored in a lump of glue that later paints up nicely as the root base..  all I need to do is figure out how to stop the glue stringing!

Base coated with a cheap craft acrylic mud brown, heavy dry brush with Dark Angels green (that dates me), PVA glue and flock with a few bushes and bits of grit to add verisimilitude..  done!

So what do I think of them??  For the money, quite astounding value...   I've put the smallest ones to one side - I'll use them on terrain pieces, or the like, in the future... being soft plastic, and having been crammed in a plastic bag they come out a bit bent, and being that same soft plastic they are resistant to being unbent (they eventually go back to that shape after being straightened!); I suspect heat would be required to straighten them permanently, but to be honest I'm not bothered, I quite like them that way... Steve the Wargamer rates these 8 out of 10..  for the price, astonishing...

Queen's Rangers

Finally hit the painting table - first unit this year! "At bleeding last!", I hear you say.... 

So to ease me back in, and cause less stress on the under-used paint brushes (I wonder the bristles haven't just dried out and snapped) I started off on what was always going to be a 'paint conversion' of a unit gifted to me all those years ago by Lofty C [clicky] and which had already been painted...

I think these were listed in the Miniature Figurines catalogue as Hungarians (Line Fusilier Advancing I think - product code ASW7 [clicky]) but from my perspective the most important thing was they were already painted largely hunting green and grey, and just needed a few modifications...  so , I added knee length black gaiters (which I thought would be likely on campaign), and applied some paint to the trousers of about three quarters of them to give some variation (again I thought this might be likely for a unit on campaign) - I think that typically the regiment would have worn white trousers... touched up the helmets, added the silver crescent, and the flag started off as the one from Warflag but I modified the central shield and wreath with a better one I found elsewhere on the web...  a coat of varnish and a quick wipe over with Dullcote, based, and the jobs a good'un - not as nice as Giles's [clicky] but they'll do!

So what of the history for this unit? Well there were a fair few Loyalist regiments raised in support of the British crown during the war of American Independence, and these were one of the better known ones...

They were originally raised by Robert Rogers (he of "Rogers Rangers" fame in the French and Indian War) in 1775/1776 at the start of the war, and were named after Queen Charlotte the wife of George III. In August 1776 at their first muster they numbered just over 900 men, organised in 11 companies of infantry, and five troops of cavalry (like Lausanne's Legion they were an all arms unit and eventually had their own artillery as well)

Rogers left the command in January 1777, following a surprise attack on the unit the previous October where they had taken serious casualties (other references refer to both his "poor health", his "alcoholism" and his poor choice of character in the officers he selected to lead the regiment as being behind the removal of command).

Despite this the regiment went on to distinguished itself at Brandywine [clicky] in September, under the new command of Major James Wemyss [clicky here for a good biography]; Howe personally thanked the regiment for "their distinguished gallantry, and good conduct."

In the October John Graves Simcoe [clicky] was given command (Wemyss - a British regular - was apparently dissatisfied at the lack of promotion and recognition and had resigned).

You pays your money and takes your choices, but Simcoe either turned them into one of the most successful British regiments in the war, or they already were that good as a result of Wemyss's previous work and Simcoe just benefited, but either way the regiment were present in a significant number of campaigns, battles and skirmishes. From Wikipedia....

• They provided escort and patrol duty around Philadelphia (1777–8); 
• fought in the Pennsylvania campaign; 
• served as rearguard during the British retreat to New York (1778); 
• fought the Stockbridge Militia in The Bronx (1778); known as the Battle of Kingsbridge there's a fairly interesting account here [clicky]
• fought at Perth Amboy, New Jersey, where Simcoe was captured but freed in a prisoner exchange three months later (1779–80); this is well worth a read for the story of this raid [clicky]
  
• at Charlestown, South Carolina (1780); 
• in the raid on Richmond, Virginia with Benedict Arnold and in other raids in Virginia (1780–1). 

The unit surrendered at Yorktown and its rank and file were imprisoned at Winchester, Virginia.

In 1783, when the war was ended by the Treaty of Paris, the Queen's Rangers left New York for Nova Scotia, where the regiment was disbanded.

Figures are  25mm Miniature Figurines

R and R #2..

Gone but not forgotten...

...and a little bit of Heaven on Earth..

R and R...

If you know, you know.. 😏

John Symon Asher "Jack" Bruce (14 May 1943 – 25 October 2014)

I'm a little bit late, but better late than never....

Readers of the blog will know that music has always played a fairly large part of Steve the Wargamers life (along with beer, books, military history, sailing, and the current Mrs Steve the Wargamer - not necessarily in that order..) and some of the earliest music that hit my radar and stuck was that of Jimi Hendrix and Cream - not at the time they were current, I hasten to add, I'd have been about 10 at the time of the following and I doubt very much I'd have been allowed out that late on a school night... of the two I much preferred Hendrix (and still do - he will feature later in this occasional series) because Cream (ok, Clapton!) always struck me as being a little too "restrained", but in my Top 20, this one definitely features, and this clip is breathtaking - far better than the album version... and I think that is the key to why the muso's of the time rated Cream as highly as they did - they were absolutely blistering live, but a little over produced on album.....




By the by - if ever evidence was needed that old rockers shouldn't come out of retirement, compare this to the coverage of the same track at their 2005 reunion shows - don't get me wrong I'd have been there like a shot if I could have got a ticket or afforded one - but there is simply no comparison..... 

RIP Jack....