Impetus Baroque, 20mm - Portuguese War of Restoration, 1640-1668. Part 1-Revell 30 YW figures in use.

Sooner or later I was told this thing would happen. After many years of Wargaming... better, making Wargames armies, from distant countries and wars one gets to the point of using most of the figures you have for your own history and wargaming armies.

Excluding WWII, whenever a period of history pops out in our head there would be the portuguese army ...

Once again my stock gives me most of what I want as I stored over the years some dozen of these boxes of Revell 30 YW infantry, cavalry and artillery.

In fact I was collecting them whenever I could with that funny feeling that one day it will be the day.

Well the day came when I saw a great diorama (this one)⬇️

by the modeller Francisco Furtado in a modelling exposition in the city of Maia, close to Porto. Impetus big bases and the possibility of placing a full squadron of 24 pikemen and arquebusiers in a sole base made the rest. 

All figures were from the Revell sets and they represent a terço of the portuguese restoration army. 

Hooked...Once again...

The Revell sets are just superb. For me the only problem is a small ratio of pike in relation to arquebus. The solution was the conversion of arquebusiers to pikemen (3rd and 5th figure above and last three below).

The pikes are the trusty broom threads heated and cut to spear point.

 Same happened to this flag bearer ( 2nd figure). The 4th figure had its original flag cut and replaced by a printed one. 

This is the figure from were the flagbearer of the previous picture is coming. 

More arquebusiers turned into pikemen with the help of Mrs broom and Mr GreenStuff.

All for now. Stay tuned and a happy new year for all of you. 

AOE 28mm French Waterloo army in video

I'm getting lazy with pictures... 

This Napoleonic French Waterloo army is almost complete but became too big to present pictures. So I present you a short video you can see by clicking the link below:

http://youtu.be/nbopWZfS9Vk

AOE 20mm - Battle of Buçaco - French army finished with video and all!!

For months I left the 50éme de Ligne undone maybe cause I was afraid to finish one of the armies that gave me more joy to do: L'armée de Portugal of general Massena. This is its last regiment and the last 60 of a total of over 1000 figures built and painted in the last few years for this army. 

This regiment is a mix of Hat and Ykreol plastic figures.

The Tête de Colonne is an a Ykreol stand  and the figures are just great! 

Damn!! I forgot to erase the "6" from the flag and replace it with the "50". I will do it now as soon as I post this one. 

Hat grenadiers. 

Hat Voltigeurs. I couldn't find correct uniform info for the 50éme Voltigeurs so I hope this one is close. 

The Hat and Ykreol figures go very well with each other having a toy like look and seeming as being sculpted by the same hands. 

The direction these guys were looking at the end of the 27th September 1810...

And now a small video for you to see the full Massena's army for AOE in 20mm.

      http://youtu.be/9E-dslTMBLo

Archeological finding (?) close to the Roman city of Conimbriga

On the recent days I've been busy in Condeixa, near Conimbriga, due to some works of mine about WWI.

There I found in a small book/utility shop all these Atlantic boxes. I made the usual question when entering such places " mam, do you have those old small boxes of plastic soldiers, tanks or planes to build ?" The lady went to her attic - several times - and came with all these.

Almost 60 Atlantic boxes from the 80's of modern infantry and weapons, Tigers, Shermans, Leopards, Japanese, AfrikaKorps and many more and some 1/32nd scale models I didn't even remember they manufactured. Price? She called his husband and he said to charge 1 euro each box and then to apply a discount to the lot. So, at the end, 40 euros! Not bad for a Saturday morning. 

The worst is that probably I will never do any of them but it's good for the soul and makes me remember my first battles with  plastic models some 35 years ago when I was throwing dryed pieces of earth (shells, of course) at them in  the back yard were my grandmother planted her onions. 

Everything of course under the close observation of Anita, my neighbour and same age as me but 10cm taller...

As Springsteen sings 🎶"in the wink of an young girl's eyes, glory days"🎶.

Rapid Fire! 20mm - Normandy Bocage (corners)

A few more pieces of terrain for Normandy, this time some corners for Bocage hedgerows.

Also made are some fields, everything glued to those floor tiles I mentioned in the last two posts.

On the left side of picture you have a 50mm PAK just for scale.

The construction method can be seen in the Bocage tutorial of two posts ago. Nothing new just my will to have a Normandy landscape filled with green bocage.

Rapid Fire! 20mm - Normandy Bocage finished.

And now for the finished Bocage boxes. 

The hedgerows themselves are made in the following way: pick some moss from the local woods... Ok, ok you have no woods nearby, then buy some cheap bags of Iceland moss that are sold around Christmas; then chop the moss with a pair of scissors or knife into small bits; mix them with green paint and PVA glue and apply them generously over the mounds. Don't make them too high as you will need your models to fire from the inside, at least in some places.

This is were you can use the pieces of carpet: directly inside the bocage box or outside if you prefer.

The house is a Chinese resin one, of a kind no longer seen. Fortunately some 15 years ago there were plenty and very cheap so I made a good stock. That will be another article.

Again the same principle. Without...

... and with carpet fields.

These ones are half-tiles but with the same kind of construction.

These ones are one-quarter tiles. 

All of the Bocage boxes have a balance bettween the earth of the mound being shown, small pebbles and some grass made of acrylic, PVA glue and sand. 

Let's see how they look in action...

Britannia 20mm SS soldiers man a 50mm mortar behind a small Bocage box.

Panzerschreck looking for Brad Pitt's Sherman...

Sniper at the gates...Sorry, I think I'm watching too many movies. 

Leave plenty of space inside the boxes as there must be enough room even for armour to manoeuvre. 

- Hey, Hans, nice French house...

- Franz! Dumkopf! Didn't you hear the guy saying it was chinese!

The lot. Seven boxes of Bocage and some fields to scatter around. I already have add-on Bocage but the old ones, built approximately in the same way, are in strips and not in boxes. The old ones are more pratical for wargaming but these ones are visually more appealing. 

I'll show you the ones in strips next time. 

What do you think about the way to make bocage? What is your style?

Rapid Fire! 20mm - Normandy Bocage Tutorial.

When someone is not fit or talented enough for a job we say here " go fishing" or "embrace agriculture". Well I decided exactly on  the second one. 

So for the latest days I've been making hedgerows and agriculture fields for the Normandy campaign. 

Here they go and this time the text will have little reference to miniature brands but only to Christmas, shoes, Chinese shops and other rather strange stuff...

The idea was to use some 30cmx30cm plastic and textile floor tiles I found under the varanda from some 20 years ago works and build "Bocage boxes".

Then glue some carved pieces of styrofoam/blue board with wood glue to the tiles. Trees were also made from blue board and attached to the "raised mounds of earth" with pieces of barbecue sticks.

Then the whole tile is painted with acrylics mixed with PVA glue and sand.

To others I applied the inner field inside the Bocage - pieces of green or sand yellow thin carpets bought on a chinese shop- first to the tile before painted. I ended by preferring this last method. 

Some cocktail sticks gets no tree as they will receive plenty of bush to make the pieces more varied. 

See? It looks more ... professional. Or then it's just the picture that got better. 

Many shoes were already cleaned on these carpets. The advantage is that the carpet gets lower than a new one. 

Besides after cutting the pieces you quickly spray greens and yellows to your discretion avoiding the spread of Ebola. 

Here they are all shiny and new. 

The internet is invaluable for this task as if you are not close enough to Normandy you can find hundreds of nice photos were you can get inspired. 

Next: the finished Bocage.

Rapid Fire! 20mm - British 1st Airborne Division, Arnhem 1944

The Arnhem buildings I've showed you many posts ago are finally complemented by the soldiers who fought on and around them.

My 1st Airborne division is still incomplete but some major engagements like Oosterbeek can already be played with these models. 

All these 6 pdr are built with Evergreen plastic. The crews are Esci, Revell and Airfix transformations. 

The 6 pdr jeeps (Airfix) have Evergreen parts for the ammo cases. 

Supply jeeps. The drivers are the old Airfix figures heated with a lighter and placed in their seats while still hot (and some still burning...). 

Matchbox Morris and 17 pdr.

The crews are transformations of several plastic figures with ammo taken from AFV  kits. 

Major Gough reconnaissance squadron. Most of the Vickers-K are scratchbuilt as well as the 20mm Polsten cannon. 

Medical and supply jeeps. The drivers are hard plastic Airfix with Valiant heads. 

The SHQ 75mm howitzers. 

SHQ command stands.

One of the 5 battalions painted up to now. All available brands are there. 

Some of the PIAT teams are made from the Revell infantry with Airfix heads. 

The radio man is a NATO Matchbox figure wıth a shorter rifle.

Plastic transformed figures again with Valiant Vickers. The two to the left are american but with all this smoke probably no one will notice!... 

And another one. This time everything is very British.

The same principle for the 3" mortars. 

The 2" mortar is a small Evergreen tube glued to another piece of plastic. 

Freshly landed.

A good part of 1st Airborne division is already made. Still missing are 2 battalions for the Airlanding brigade and the full 4th Parachute Brigade. 

I have 3 Italeri Horsa gliders on the construction cue and a crazy plan for some 2 Hamilcar gliders made from scratch.

Stay tuned.