Samurai (not pizza) cat

 

One Steven did a while ago but the post was embargoed as it was a surprise Christmas present for Sarah.

My initial comment was the obvious one that it wasn't a Samurai Pizza Cat...

And it fits nicely into a thimble sized display case.

Latest arrivals

The last purchase of Dinky. etc, vehicles has arrived...

 

They are in several different scales - one disadvantage of buying job lots of the things. On the other hand, my habit of getting stuff over several scales gets rid of that problem! The 'new' Centurion should be a better fit for 28mm+ models.

One problem with a lot of these (though not with the new ones!) is the fact that a lot of the tyres are missing or perished. There's also the fact I haven't found a colour I like to paint them.

To try and solve the tyres issue, my first attempt with be by simply seeing if wrapping 3mm foam rubber seal weather strip around the rim will act as replacement tyres. Some ordered, due tomorrow. If it works you can get a lot of tyres out of a 1 metre roll. Won't be perfect, but if it looks OK I'll be happy.

Merry Christmas everyone

 

Merry Christmas everybody, probably the current tree's last outing. It's served well for the last few years but is looking to be due for retirement.

Possible colour schemes

 

Although my painting desk is unavailable, my spray booth(!) is still available. So I've quickly done some test spraying.

The original scheme I used was US Olive Drab. Not really happy with this for Centurions...

British WW2 Armour. Didn't realise I had this when I did the previous tank. It still needs another coat - not sure why it originally had German markings, that's hidden in prehistory.

And of course the wolf grey... in terms of pure looks my favourite, but as an option, not sure; even I don't know how I could justify it.

What I don't have is a colour that matches any of this lot. That, of course, should be the ideal choice. Probably like the Daimler in the bottom left corner. Suggestions anyone?

Christmas came early...

 

Two parcels arrived today covering 3 ebay auctions - not supposed to arrive until 27th December - 5th January.

This lot were by far the best in terms of useful items, spoilt only by excessive postage due to no option for combining postage. It means that the tank and SP artillery components are sorted and even allow for some experimentation re colour schemes.

Rather more tyres missing on these than the photos suggested - but then I always knew I would be having to source/make a load of tyres anyway. Next stage will be to de3cide how to make them - I might finish up making casts of the entire wheel rather than mess about with just tyres.

Which means only one more parcel due.

Still building...

 
I seem to be bidding on and getting rather more job lots than I expected - 3 auctions won out of 4 I put bids on, 2 of those being for the minimum starting bid. Add to that the 2 lots previously described - 17 useable vehicles for £27.30, £1.60 per vehicle.

As delivery for these won't be until after Christmas I thought I'd just put the auction pictures on as a 'taster'.

This little lot cost £23.15 inclusive of P&P.  13 items, so £1.78 per item. At least 8 items are of immediate use, so £2.89 per useful item. My target is to keep the average below £4 per item. Still a few vehicles I would like - couple of 20mm Saladins would be nice, plus a couple more Dingos.

The next two were by the same seller and totalled £33.90. 17 items, all of which seem to be useable, so £1.99 per item. I think I can safely say tanks and artillery are up to strength!

So £57.05 at least 25 of which I have an immediate use for. Obviously, quality is low, but paying £2 per item for useable wargames vehicles is a lot better than a minimum of £5 or so for better quality stuff that wouldn't be any better for the job. 

Personal conclusions are that I'm building up a nice collection of useable vehicles for a very reasonable price.

Building up the vehicle park

I'm currently scouring ebay for cheapish vehicles for pulp scenarios. This lot are from my latest purchase.

It was supposed to have 2 complete M40s; instead I got 3 hulls and 1 gun! Might have to make a couple of guns.

Plus a few items of less use. The gun I could probably sort the wheels out. Anyway, all this lot worked out at £9.70 in total, so don't mind a few things that are basically useless!

The M113 looks the same size as the Airfix one in the photo. It's actually a bit longer, slightly longer and a lot wider!

I'm starting to build up a nice collection of Airfix polythene Centurions. I might see what one looks like if I paint it grey like that  balsa WW1 tank I did a while back. 

Update to this:

Just come off ebay - got this lot for £17.50 including postage...

A few more cultists finished

 

Finally a bunch of cultists quickly finished off. Nothing to really say about these, just a few more 20mm reinforcements for the Cult of Dagon.

And that's the end of the 'finishing off' painting I did before closing down my painting area - no more painting until January.

'S' Range Persians or Medes

 Some Minifigs 'S' Range 'Medes' - actually Persians but the Persian/Mede codes were the wrong way round for these figures. So they are really Persians even if Minifigs called them  Medes.

Originally I was going to base these as Sparabara but finally decided on 3Bw and - well, spears on an 3Ax or     similar base.

Again, two different styles of figure for the spearman!

'S' Range Persian spears

This unit was a 40 strong unit bought from Harry. To fit my systems I've increased the size to 48 figures and included an extra officer and standard bearer - both Garrison - so it could double as two 24 figure units. One thing I couldn't quite match was the shield colour - so the shields on the extras might have to be repainted at some stage. Although actually Medes, not Persians, these figures were coded as Persians by Minifigs.

Other than painting extra figures and a minor repair on the original standard bearer the figures have just been rebased.

In common with many other 'S' Range figures there are two different variants.

'S' Range slings and javelins

 

These two units are a bit of an oddity. All the slingers and javelinmen I have other than these are either Garrison or PB figures! These are basically odd figures acquired with other figures/purchases. Harry, Charles Grant and Harry all had Garrison light javelins and slings; Harry and I had PB javelins and slings in our Macedonian armies.

The slingers aren't all 'S' Range though. Some are PB.

One thing about 'S' Range is that there were usually a least two variants. The front two figures are both 'S' Range  A.Gr.9s - according to the catalogue it's supposed to be equipped with a shield like the middle figure - but the front figure has the code engraved on the upper surface of the base. The figure at the back is a PB figure.

These figures are a bit strange. There is no light javelin listed, just 'Greek Peltast (Medium Infantry) Charging.' So I assume that this figure is the 'medium' peltast!

Again, two variations. In true Minifigs tradition, one of the these with spear held vertically was obtained by me in the 70s directly from Minifigs. It was in that order I've previously mentioned when an order for some Egyptians came with five different figures... so it could be a weird Egyptian figure with crescent shield :)

Getting ready for Christmas...

 

The painting area has been cleaned up and closed down ready for the Christmas Tree... Happily I completed enough figures for a few more posts...

Cybermat!

 

Bought from Crooked Dice when I splashed out earlier in the year.

They should add a bit to the Cyberman forces!

Not sure whether or not I should make them a bit more 'silvery'

 Got a load of items finished in time for the Christmas painting corner tidy up... so a few things in the queue to post.

From a garage in Scotland...

 A while back I got a couple of boxes from Scotland. Then another box. Had a few more items since, and now the latest things 'found in the garage' has arrived - totally unexpected and out of the blue! 

Nice set of early 20th Century cars - very useful addition to the fleet.

It's a boxed set from the Reader's Digest. No scale given - looked up on the internet and found one reference saying 1/64th but my guess is a bit smaller than this.

By Oxford Diecast - presumed 1/87th or 1/76th but I'm not going to worry about that - it's useful in either scale!

Meanwhile, update on other stuff - currently trying to get a total of 6 different things sorted before I have to clear up for Christmas. 2 done but not photographed, rest getting there!

Persian Review 2023 - the rest

 

So this little lot includes Assyrians, Egyptians, Lydians/Phrygians, Ethiopians, Thracians, etc...

There are also a few figures that were missed on the previous posts - 14 Bactrian cavalry, 12 Sarangian archers and 6 Indian horse archers.

Except for the last two pictures this lot are just random bits of the army. This is the right flank, basically a light infantry screen including Milyae and Syrians.

Left flank, including Arab archers at the front.

The Indians missed out on having their own army when I got a load of Minifigs. So this archer unit is the only Garrison Indians I've painted.

Assyrians in the foreground, various Asian Greeks behind them. The smaller 'blue' Assyrians are ones I did, 'red' figures are ex-Harry.

This is more of a test unit. I usually paint Nubians/Kushites dark brown but I experimented with black for these. The standard bearer is a Rose figure.

Carthaginian spears pretending to be Phoenicians backed by some Asiatic Greeks. All these figures are ex-Harry, though the original Carthaginians were supplied by me. A lot of figures I sent Harry came back painted when I bought his collection!

The front row are from my original 70s army and are in need of some attention. Behind them are my Hollywood style Carians in black armour.

Phrygian/Lydians. Need more of these for the Lydian army - and the figures for that are just sitting there!

Garrison Phrygian axemen. A 40 strong unit acquired from Harry.

Egyptians. The ones with the falcon shield blazon are more survivors from my 70s army.

Ex-Harry Persian javelins backed by ex-Harry Persian archers. In front of them some converted Milyae.

Various Nubian/Kushite/Ethiopians backed by Thracians and with Arab archers in front.

Meanwhile, thought it might be an idea to round off the army with some Greeks. On the right flank a load of late Greek conversions, to their left a couple of units of Thebans. I admit I don't like that Theban figure - it overlaps the bases too much!

Could have used more but decided to leave the rest of the late Greeks in their box.

So that's it. Not sure, but I might do a separate post grouping the main pictures together as one Review rather than leaving them separate.

This lot totals about 570 infantry plus 20 cavalry - plus, of course, about 250 Greek hoplites!

Ignoring the Greeks, army itself has 2,058 infantry, 521 cavaly, 36 camels, 17 chariots, 3 war wagons and an elephant (not counting the 8 Sassanid elephants!)