George Cross for the NHS

Have a look here everyone, much more important than my birthday.

https://www.change.org/p/the-george-cross-committee-of-the-cabinet-office-award-the-george-cross-to-the-nhs-for-their-heroism-in-the-covid-19-pandemic?recruiter=298806957

The Cake Has Landed

The Cake Has Landed, 70 years old, that's me, not the cake.

Also had my daughter, son-in-law and 3 year old grandson cycle past the house dropping off a card in the passing. Waved to them from the living room window, it was absolutely Baltic so didn't hang about. My grandson gets towed in a little buggy behind one of the bikes.

In the last two minutes my niece/god-daughter and her daughter did a drive-by of the house, difficult in a cul-de-sac but you know what I mean. My niece is a fully trained paramedic but she was on a welcome day off. Another card dropped off and a few quid slipped into my PayPal account. Wonder what it will buy, maybe a book or some more figures.

Many thanks for all your good wishes.

Back to the paint brush now.

GoFundMe - Pendraken

Those nice people at Pendraken continue to surprise me but then I shouldn't be surprised at all knowing them.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/producing-ppeface-shields-for-the-northeast

Go and donate (now), you know you want to.

Scrub in the Sudan - Shaved

My further experiments of making 10mm grass tufts with sisal string have proved unsuccessful. I am OK if you to want to represent cat vomit in 1:1 scale.

I went back to my horsehair shrubbery and shaved the top off until it was about 10mm high and then gave it a 'wig' of green flock.

Here's before:

And here's after:

What do you think?

Scrub in the Sudan

I've been looking around for a way to represent long grass and scrubland in the Sudan for my 10mm Sands of Sudan Project.

I started of using sisal string which proved to be a bit fluffy once teased out.

I then tried some horsehair which I had lying around.

It's not ideal but the best I can do in the circumstances.

Here are some Egyptian Infantry (half a battalion) awaiting a Mahdist charge.

I mounted the horsehair on some 40mm Warbases rounds with a touch of sand and paint.

I'll probably make felt areas to delineate where the scrub actually is.

Has anyone got any better ideas. Normally I would go scrounging around the DIY stores but that is not available to me just now.

WSS Mounted Dragoons - Full Unit

 I finished the remaining 6 Mounted Dragoons so here they are as a full unit.

Meanwhile some camels have appeared in the Sands of Sudan project box.

And some die markers.

Litko round bases, Warbases die holders and mini-dice, railway ballast, paint and static grass.

Pendraken 1882 Egyptian Infantry are soon to be ready.

Meanwhile:

I am waiting for the Covid-19 event to wither away as I'm hoping to attend Carronade in Falkirk in May and also have a family holiday in Spain during July.

Furthermore:

My medical team have reviewed my last CT scan, from January, and have declared that there is no further signs of cancer.

However they detected some narrowing of my left coronary artery which will need some attention.

My response is to keep on painting soldiers.

More when I know it.

WSS Mounted Dragoons

Wargames Factory Mounted Dragoons suitable for the War of the Spanish Succession 1701-1714.

These are multi-part plastic figures now available from Warlord Games. At £20 for 12 figures what's not to like, a good way to build up forces at lower cost than metals.

https://store.warlordgames.com/collections/war-of-spanish-succession-1701-1714/products/marlboroughs-wars-cavalry-of-the-grand-alliance

I've had these for a while but never found the time to paint them. They have come out quite nicely.

I suspect they might be victims of rough handling so I reinforce the bases as shown below.

http://jim-duncan.blogspot.com/2016/02/pinning-plastic-cavalry.html

Infantry are available too.

http://jim-duncan.blogspot.com/2019/11/wss-british-infantry.html

https://store.warlordgames.com/collections/war-of-spanish-succession-1701-1714/products/marlboroughs-wars-infantry-of-the-grand-alliance

Artillery or should I say ordnance are available too.

http://jim-duncan.blogspot.com/2016/02/wss-artillery.html

https://store.warlordgames.com/collections/war-of-spanish-succession-1701-1714/products/marlboroughs-wars-artillery-battery

No, I am not on commission for this posting but I do like this range of figures although they do take a bit of construction time although not as bad as some multi-part figures.

What do you think guys?