That means there is just a wooden walkway to build from the demi-line to the glacis, the Sluice Gates to build and the Gatehouse to finish painting. Then the fortifications themselves will finally be finished.
I have been struggling for a while with switching between projects for painting and basing and finding everything to do with the modelling side of the hobby. Stuff is stored in various different places and I often find myself searching several drawers and boxes for certain tools or paints, etc.
My painting desk has been a bureau that I inherited from my parents which I first adopted when my painting area was in my games room and I wanted to be able to close it up and ignore customers orders when I wasn't working.
It worked well, but it has a very small work area and thus for basing I was using other tables and also couldn't store all the tools, glues, etc in one place.
I finally decided to bite the bullet and do something about this. I have had my eye on the Hobbyzone modular workbench sets for a while and decided to take the plunge and order some to see how well they worked and what size drawers would be useful.
They have a wide range of paint racks, drawer sets, sprue holders, etc available. I don't need paint racks as my paints are already in racks which were on top of the bureau. Now the painting area is in the hobby room rather than the games room I have been able to place them on the windowsill.
I ordered 3 different drawer sets (2,3,and 6 drawers), the sprue holder, the paper towel holder and the tool and brush holder.
They are produced using a CNC machine rather than laser cut and are built from 6mm MDF with holes for magnets which hold them securely to each other. They are thinner 2mm mdf drawer fronts and backs, etc.
The instructions are pretty good and I watched a couple of videos first before tackling the modules.
You need to remove the CNC tabs that hold the pieces togetehr first but then it is simply a case of assembling the pieces in the suggested order using wood glue. I used Gorilla woodglue which dries in about 30 mins and taped everything together with masking tape while it dried.
I enjoyed putting these modules together and found them quite satisfying to assemble.
The end result:
As you can see, the painting desk is now larger (5' x 2') and well organised with stuff within easy reach which I hope will remove some of the frustrations I had been feeling.
I am looking at adding 2 corner units with 2 open shelved paint racks on them to hold the glue, varnishes, etc.
I played another SYW game at the Guildford Club this week using Honours of War rules.
Chris and I took the Prussians against the Austrian hordes. We had 4 brigades a side with a single independent Hussar unit. I asked Chris at the start if he "wanted to make the futile cavalry charges" or he wanted me to. He said he would.
I hadn't realised that he meant it quite so literally and with poor die rolling for Prussian Dragoons against Superior Austrian Curassier, he managed to lose the entire Cavalry Brigade AND the independent Hussar unit by the end of Turn 2 (and thus the left flank)! We were only on a 4' wide table which meant that things happened quickly.
Things didn't really improve for the Prussians despite some changes of fortune and the Austrians finally broke the Prussian army after a fairly hard fought 2 hour game. Leaving quite a lot of time for the Pub.
An enjoyable game despite the carnage.
Played a Napoleonic game this week using slightly amended Neil Thomas Rules and my 54mm collection.
The scenario saw a Prussian force defending a crossroads from the French who march on to the table from the south. The Prussian reinforcements arrive from the North.Initial forces arriving. The Prussians have more Infantry but the french have more cavalry.I got caught up in the action so didn't take many more photos.
The
French advanced and sent their cavalry round the right flank, the same
side as the Prussian cavalry unit. The Prussians threw their cavalry
unit in against the French Guard cavalry hoping to win the melee force
it to retire into their own troops and thus be eliminated. It was a
50/50 chance and unfortunately they only scored 2 hits while the French
won the melee with 4 hits. The Prussians were thrown back and then
charged the next turn and eliminated.
Across the rest of the
battlefield it was a fairly even fight with units on both sides whittled
down but not eliminated. I made a mistake as the french of exposing my
horse artillery to infantry fire (after a unit masking it was
eliminated) and lost the battery but was able to destroy the French Foot
artillery in turn.
When we called the game it was a close run
thing with the Prussians have more intact Infantry units but the French
still have a fresh cavalry unit.
I made a major mistake in not
sending my horse artillery with the cavalry and using it to knock down
the strength of infantry units so I could charge them safely which would
have probably won me the game.
I haven't been playing many games or finishing anything on the workbench for the last few weeks.
I have some French 25mm Minifigs Marlburians about 70% done, the French WW2 townhouses I 3d printed about 80% done and I've started on a couple of Marvel Crisis Protocol figures to see what might work for painting them. But nothing is finished - I am managing a colour a day on something so they'll get there eventually...
I've also been distracted this week by 2 minor ops in 4 days - nothing serious but they take time to get over.
