Man Cave 2: The Next Generation

After an exhausting weekend I have finally commissioned the new Rayleigh Factorium aka Man Cave 2! It has been hard work putting it together simply because of having to reorganise, in effect, three rooms. Now that I am back in business the first task will be to get the bases prepared for the additional War at Sea ships and aircraft I have. This will be tackled in conjunction with the revised storage system I will be using for them which will take up a lot less space. Although I had mentioned in an earlier post that I had sourced a supply of box files that are half the depth of the standard version I have not been able to price these at less than £3.99 a go which is more than I want to pay. As I calculated I would need about a dozen of these the cost would mount up – I would certainly be able to buy far more interesting material with the monies in question! As an alternative then, I will use the existing box files I have and make up some inner trays to double up the carrying capacity. I was tempted to use a new shade of blue for the bases (my current shade of blue is a little on the dark side) but given that I would then have to repaint nigh on 200 others decided that this was probably not a good idea!

Once that has been tackled I will then return to the Balkan Wars stuff and I will push on get these finished as soon as possible. Around the ongoing figure painting I have a couple of modelling projects to undertake - these are relatively small scale and make for a welcome diversion whilst waiting for paint or varnish to dry. These are of a VSF nature and are simple to manufacture en masse - now that I have some extra room it means that semi painted or assembled ‘kit’ can now safely be left out overnight – and will be used for both Aeronef and the forthcoming Aquanef.

The ‘cerebral’ projects, mainly naval campaign based, are on track, albeit somewhat retarded, and so completing the additional War at Sea stuff should hopefully provide an additional spur. I have two ideas on the go – the Mediterranean based Malta Convoy scenario and revisiting the Bismarck affair. Once the models are based then I should be more inclined to push on with the mechanics of the two campaigns – these will drafted during ‘non-painting’ time e.g. lunch time or even on the train to and from work (I have an hour each way).

As another ‘cerebral’ exercise I will continue to add flesh to the background of both Balkrunia and Karagoz; my pair of 1920’s ‘imagi-nations’. I am enjoying this diversion and have plans to make use of some of the figures I have for the forces in question; with the addition of a few WW1 vintage vehicles and some Wings of War aircraft, suitably repainted. I have been considering using the Peter Laing 15mm WW1 collection as the basis for Balkrunia and Karagoz – I certainly have enough figures to produce any amount of armies and of course, should I design the uniforms etc myself (I was not planning to do this originally) I can ‘mix and match’ to my hearts desire. The figures from this collection would need a repaint in any event so this would probably be a good opportunity to revamp the collection into something unique.