Naval news and the delays of the same....

The first four Rusland ships - light cruisers based upon the German Magdeburg class cruiser

Another view of the above - for details re the painting see below.

Although my nautical posts have been somewhat sparse of late this does not mean that not a lot has been going on. Far from it in fact. To begin with, my Stonewall order has yet to arrive but this has been explained by a problem with one of the moulds finally giving up the ghost and a breakdown in the casting machine itself - all of which has delayed the delivery somewhat. I have taken the opportunity accorded by this delay to change my mind once again about what I am going to do with the ships and so I have reverted to my original plan of splitting the fleets between historical and hysterical farces (and yes, that was intentional!) - namely I shall have representative fleets for the Royal Navy, the High Seas Fleet, Fezia and Rusland. The latter pair will be using the early war kit whilst the former will have the second generation of dreadnoughts etc.

The four cruisers you see above were painted using Humbrol enamels and with a black undercoat dry brushed with various shades of grey (not quite 50 though....). The bases were painted using a tube of Windsor and Newton Cobalt Turquoise which came up far lighter and greener than the colour on the tube suggested. I was after a colour that was as close to the colour of a Hexon tile as I could find and this looked like it was it. It is a little too light but I shall stick with it - it certainly lightens up the ship colour which is no bad thing. I have yet to add the identification labels and ensigns to the bases - mainly because I need to come up with some - so that will also be under consideration. The rules are probably the only thing that is ready at the moment and these will form another post in due course.

I have eight town class cruisers on the painting table which are currently black undercoated and awaiting the grey and I am hoping to get this tackled over the weekend.

The earlier period navies for Fezia and Rusland will be making use of the box of ships I acquired from Dave Ryan of Caliver Books - they being the old Minifigs 1/1800th scale range available once again. These will of course be painted in the correct colour scheme for the period - so plenty of black hulls and white upper works will be in evidence.

The big thing though, will be taking delivery of my order from Stonewall which, all being well, will be during the course of next week.