SELWG 12 Report

It’s the only wargame show that I have been able to go to this year and I always look forward to going to SELWG again at the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre.

As with last year the sun was shining and this time I went by car and arrived just after 11am. I did not have much on my shopping list as HaT have just shipped out their next order for which there is plenty for me to buy. So it was more or less a time to see what is happening in our hobby. 

The entry fee was once again £6 to get in and as soon as you get in, you can hear all of the activity going on in the hall, a slightly bigger crowd than last years. As usual I like to walk around all the trader’s stalls and look to see what is on offer.

The first thing that hit me after just the first few stands that they had a lot of them laser cut wooden buildings. Although these look very nice in detail, the price was quite high but as always I hope that once they become popular the price will drop. 

My first stop was at the Magnetic Displays stand and loved a pack of walls and a gate to go with it. These will go with my derelict farm set. Next stop was at the Hatfield stand. I love having a good rummage in their second hand packs of plastic figures but none that I needed. But to my surprise, I did find a complete box of Revell Napoleonic British Infantry. I do need loads of these now as I have run out of the old Airfix figures as they are all now painted up. These are now hard to find as the Revell set are not in production any more.

The bring and buy stand was packed and as busy as always, but I could not see anything that I wanted here, so down to the main hall. Big surprise here is that the main hall usually has all the trade stands going around the outside with the wargaming all in the middle. But this year there were more trade stands in the middle which meant that there were fewer gaming tables this year.

I wanted to make up some casualty markers so I needed some bases to do these on. My first thought was to make the markers in a square, but came along to the Warbases stand and brought one pack of 40mm and one pack of 50mm round bases. The 40mm will do for the infantry and the 50mm for dead horses etc. After going around all of the trade stands, I had noticed that the 28mm plastic figures are in abundance this year. Not many 20mm plastic sets could be found. Will 20mm scale hobby people be out numbered soon by the 28mm?

 

So with the wargame tables around the main hall the displays are getting more and more life-like. You can tell the ones that have spent a lot of time on their terrain features and I have taken a couple of pictures of them.

 

 

 

Loughton Strike Force “Aspern-Essling” Napoleonic

 

Deal Wargames Club “Danger in Denmark” WWII

 

Crawley Wargames  Club “Brave Little Belgium” WWII

 

 

Update on the Prussian Artillery

Good news today is that I have completed painting the Prussian Officer and drummer for the Prussian Foot Artillery and I must say that they really do look good, if I do say so myself.

Although HaT’s idea of making the backpacks and arms separate for some of the figures in the Prussian Infantry Command set (8255) the bad news is that some of the pegs are too large for the holes in the backpacks and arms. I original thought that this was a good idea from HaT to give you the option to make different possess, but after cutting the pegs off to fit the arm/backpacks on the arm on the officer does not look correct. Still after painting them both up am glad that I did.

Also from the Artillery set, I have painted up the four pack horses that are in the set.These will give a little something different to the gaming table as you usually don’t see them on wargaming tables. Unfortunately these will not count on my painting total but the officer and drummer will, which means I have now painted a total of 32 figures this year. I hope to finish off the last batch of Prussian Dragoons this weekend. So another update soon,

What to do next?

Now quite a lot of the wargame bloggers have told us what they are starting on the work bench for this month September. Well I have never gone down that road as it would take me more than a month to finish the list. In fact it would take me more than a year. So with the near completion of the Prussian Dragoons what is on my too do list.

Well I have been looking at my long list of figures to paint and I have now decided to paint the 1^st Carabiniers of the French army. The figures are from Italeri and although I have painted figures in cream, grey light blue and tan plastic, never have I painted figures in silver before? Well as long as the prepping is done well, I do not really see them as a problem to paint these I hope.

Now doing some research on these, I still find that lots of people have lots of opinions to what uniform they were wearing on that day at Waterloo. Some say they had all white tunics and trousers while others say blue, some even say blue tunics and grey trousers. I will still do some digging around on this as I am not going to start painting these until I have finished the Prussian dragoons.

UPDATE

It has been a while since my last post but the good news is that I have finished the last batch of horses for the 8^th Prussian Dragoons which means that all 18 are now finished. On the other hand I have also completed the second batch of troopers and have started the last batch of six. It now means that I have completed a total of 30 figures so far this year and it’s the best I have done over the last three years. I still have to finish off the two Prussian Artillery members the Officer and drummer and the second batch of Prussian Landwehr.

My spending on the hobby has really taken off this year. My brother has picked up the last derelict farm building for me from Hornby in Margate, Kent which was the farm house itself. With another two tins of paint and a roll of non-slip mat for a project I hope to start soon.

Now that summer is over, although the hot weather looks set for another week, it means that I will have more time for my hobby or does it?

News from the Front

Today Hat Have said that two sets of Napoleonic figure are “Moving up the queue”, what that means I have no idea, but maybe they will be shipped out before Christmas?

The two sets are French Line Infantry of 1815 period which is very good news.

Good in the sense that there are a new set of French Infantry figures coming out as it’s been a long time since the old Airfix set came out. I did not like the Italeri set much as they looked a bit skinny and they are now hard to find.Now I do love my Airfix regiments and I still have two more boxes waiting to be painted up as the 3^rd and 4^th Fusiliers regiments.

In the Hat box 8294 they are all marching and they contain two elite figures on each spur. With this they have four different backpacks to choose from and some head swaps added.

The other set, 8295 is the Line Infantry Command set. This has two officers on foot with one holding the flag, while we have one on horseback. There is also a drummer and two NCO’s. All look very good although we are just seeing the drawings of the two sets at the moment. Well I have now got to get my finger out and start painting faster.