This blog needs a doctor... John Watson at your service!

It's far too long since I posted some lines here. Maybe a last attempt to bring this blog to live again...

At Tactica 2018 some fellows and me presented a participation game featuring the 2nd Anglo-Afghan War. To decorate the battlefield we wanted some vignette which lead me to the humble piece.

Since I've already added a detachment of the 66th Regiment of Foot (the unlucky Berkshire regiment) it was a no-brainer that I had to add Dr Watson as well (in the introduction of "A Study in Scarlet" it's mentioned that Watson served with the 66th and was wounded during the battle of Maiwand).

The vignette is based on the excellent hospital set which Perry Miniatures have in their Sudan range. After consulting a couple of reference books and an interesting conversation with sculptor Michael Perry who is very studied regarding the mentioned conflict I realized that the only real hindrance might be the helmets and the characteristic puggree. Luckily in their NWF plastic set there is an officer’s head with a cap bearing a 66 (for the 66th Regiment) which I put on Watson’s body after removing the given pit helmet. Although the neck looks a bit strange I’m rather satisfied with my humble conversion work.

The stretcher bearer who's standing by had the puggree just grinded away slightly. Then I painted it khaki to resemble the helmets with the iconic covers.

As usual I employed mostly Vallejo Model colours as well as the splendid set of skin colours Wargames Foundry is offering. Finally I added a coat of matt varnish and a couple of grass tufts and a couple of pieces of clump foliage.

Cheers
Stefan

66th Rgt. of Foot finished... For now.

A while ago I presented a review of the British infantry plastics for 1877-1885 by Perry Miniatures and my first painted figures from the set (here). As some of you might remember I wanted to have a unit of those splendid figures painted as members of the 66th Regiment of Foot that fought a heroic battle near Maiwand on 27th July 1880. So here we go:

66th for NWF - Perry British Infantry 1877 - 1885

Ten days gone since my last post. Holidays are really a hustle... Currently I'm having my yearly summer holiday and we spend part of it at home but part of it in East Frisia by the sea as well. Although I enjoy any time out and especially having time for the family things tend to go somehow stressful to hang around together all the time. Particularly when the girls are missing their common playfellows. However there'll be a couple of day trips to mention here...

During the last days my blog crawled over the 300,000 hits step nearly unnoticedly. Many thanks for your recurring interest in my humble pieces of work!

Be sure that I'll cover this step in a seperate post and I'll create a appropriate raffle for that. But I have to postpone this in the aftermath of our holiday.

But now in medias res. Actually this day's post was meant to introduce and review the rather new plastic set by Perry Miniatures. The spring after Salute the twin published a set I'd been waiting for since it was announced last year: British Infantry 1877 - 1885.

As you know the Great Game and the 2nd Anglo-Afghan War have been keeping my attention for a while. So I didn't wait too long until I assembled and prepare a couple of those figures. Finally the first five are finished and I wanted to take the chance to show you the set as a whole.

As most of you might know the plastics come as a box of 36 multi-part 28mm figures. Once again they come in a handy box with a tremendous artwork by Peter Dennis: