Being Mostly Back in the North Atlantic....

1:4800th scale WW2 Japanese produced by Shapeways. These are superbly detailed models (note the aircraft on the flight deck of the carrier) but are not cheap. then again, compared to MY Miniatures very little is!

It has been a busy few weeks since my birthday at the end of last month (28/09). We seem to have had a lot of things going at home and so my dedicated home based hobby time has been a little restricted. I say home based as this is where the painting and gaming take place - my commute to and from work is spent reading and researching so I am still making progress albeit in a different direction.

This weekend sees what passes for normality in our house in that SWMBO will be at work tomorrow afternoon (she works alternate Fridays and Saturdays) as will my son. He is currently working 6 days a week - he is a self-employed electrician - and doing rather well. Finally my daughter is back at university (in Reading) so it means that for five glorious hours I will have the house to myself.

I have a couple of things to take care of on the domestic front but for the most part I will finally be able to get down to some painting.

I came across the above picture of some painted Leicester Micro Models 1:4800th scale warships (now produced by MY Miniatures) and a copy of the catalogue from the late 1970s. Compared to Shapeways and C in C these are very basic by comparison but manage to capture the profile of the ships represented rather nicely. Crucially they are also very modestly priced compared to the others at 40p per item for all but the largest vessels.

I have the last of the models from MY Miniatures for the 1:4800th scale WW2 North Atlantic project - if you recall this is based on the Avalon Hill board game Bismarck - so will be basing and undercoating them. I will also need to make sure that I have the appropriate name labels so I will need to spend some time on the Mac as well. I know I have most of these but it will be easy enough to print out a fresh sheet. I also have sufficient ensigns as well although I will probably need to get some more Royal Navy types for when I venture into the Mediterranean.

I am feeling pretty positive about my projects at the moment as for the most immediate ones I have everything I need to tackle them. I have all the figures I need for the WW1 Arab Revolt in 15mm for the Portable Wargame, I have all the Spencer Smith 30mm ACWs for the Kurz and Allison project as well as everything for OGRE.

When I say everything I should qualify that by saying I have everything I need for the first phase which would be more than enough for gaming purposes. The Arab Revolt will need some armoured cars and possibly some French mountain artillery. Some tropical service uniformed British specialists would be useful - I am thinking machine guns and similar - so I will keep an eye out for some. Apart from the armoured cars none of this is really urgent and indeed, even the cars are not really compulsory.

For the Kurz and Allison collection the only other thing I need would be some ships but again, these are not essential in the short term and as they are being scratch built will form a side project in any event.

That is the plan then and I only hope I can stick with it - Cruel Seas by warlord games not withstanding....