Life´s a Beach

It´s Holiday season and even the bods have to have a break.


Finally after a Long and ardous journey and  climbing the last sand dune Lord Brashford and Lt. Tompkins have thier first view of the sea.

The brave trio, Lord Brashford, Lt, Tompkins, Achmed  and thier Faithfull mule Dobin. In the Background a beach camp.

Lt. Tompkins  - "CRABS sir! HUGE CRABS

Lord Brashford - "Tompkins!I have absolutely no interest in your personal Problems!!"

The big bods also did a bit of travelling and had a look about.
The For Freedom Museum in Belgium. On the link there´s a virtual visit to the Museum which is way better than my photos. One thing which was a bit of an eye opener was a video of some Archeologists excavating a Messerschmitt BF-110 Nightfighter ...........with a Digger!!!!!

 

Just up the road was another Museum, Sincfala - Museum van de Zwinstreek.

Mostly about the life and times of the locals from the medieval to present, it had some cracking wooden model boats. The ones pictured are all around 1/72nd - 28mm scale.

 

Bunkers!!!! The whole are is dotted with WWII bunkers, most of which you can go inside and look around. A lot of them are in a poor condition, Graffiti, used as rubbish dumps, like this Type 630 not far from the camp site,

Garffiti!! I´m not sure wether the marks on the side are from Shellfire. Apparently the walls are 3.5 meters thick!

Inside the main door.

One photo of the Type 630 at Breskens that the Bunkersite.com People didn´t get..., the turret on the top. There´s steps going down into the bunker but it was too dark to take photos.

 

Behind the Type 630 there was a Type 112a. As with the 630 you could go inside but had a few inches of water inside and frogs living there.

Bunkersite.com is a mine (no pun intended) of info about the bunker Systems in the area of Zeeland / Belguim. There really are masses of them.  One we visited was massive..with loads of bunkers of all different types spread over an area of two footballfields. Unfortunately we´d forgotten the camera..doh!!

 

 

 



Medieval Ambush!

A foolhardy attempt by three rogues living in the Woods to ambush and rob a Knight.

The ambush started well, a well aimed spear thrust brought the horse down, but the Knight quickly recovers

.............and it has ended in disaster for Willard.

His companion Kulp, seeing Willard´s fate, goes mad and attacks

It all happened so quickly and.......Boris can´t believe his eyes. Willard is dead, and Kulp has no Chance of succeeding......stay and help or run?

Scottish archers (Bannockburn)

There weren´t many, most accounts reckon on about 500 archers on the scottish side, recruited from the Ettrick Forest so a Group of 10 (at the Ratio of 50:1) covers them.
Sets used;
The Scottish Army of Wallace
Army of Henry V
Norman Archers


As apparently they didn´t Play a big role at the battle they´re Based as skirmishers

All the short bows have been replaced with longbows made from Florists wire.

This bod, from the Scottish army of Wallace set has had an arrow made from a bit of copper wire

 

Head swop using a head from the spares box (originally from the Red box Hussite Artillery set),bow replaced and bowstring removed (he was originally stringing the bow)  ,

Using the Body from the Linear-b priest in the Tudors set and the head from the airfix Robin Hood set (he Needs to have a beard) this will represent  Abbot Bernard of Arbroath.  I´ll have to make a small Version of the Breccbennach (or Monymusk Relquary), which held the relics of St Columba and Bernard carried at the battle. It´ll have to be small,  it only measures W 112mm x D 51mm x H 89mm. 

Looking about on the web I´ve found an excellent site, Medieval cookery. It´s got a huge collection of recipes and  links to original medieval cookery books from all around the world, dating from the 13th century, in most cases with translations.
The oddities section is interesting..how to cook cats, hedgehogs and just in case you ever have to, advice on determining the Age of rabbits...

Roma Victor!!!

Or, grammatically correct, "Roma Victrix!" but Roma Victor does Sound better.
The command bods from Strelets Imperial Roman Legion 1 which suggests there will be an Imperial Roman Legion 2..
There´s a complete Review of all the sets you get in the box at PSR, a total of 168 bods and 6 nags, this lot are just the command bods, 18 foot and 6 mounted

Mounted bods. I´ve given "Julius" a slightly chunkier nag from another set

Officers on foot

The Junior officers....

"Signo sequute!"
Imaginifer to the left and an aquilifer to the right

The centurion on the left looks like he´s saying "go on my son!"

"Percute!!"

The bod on the right carries a Hastile (stick carried by an optio) but so does the bod on the left whose helmet is that of a Centurions(?) I´ve painted the knobs one metal the other White as I found both variations.

 

Medieval Bombard (working scale model)

I had the Zvezda bombard set but the Barrel I´d sent to Simon ( Je Lay Emprins). His blog is full of Medieval  Burgundian loveliness...well worth a browse.
I was only interested in the bods anyway but then I thought "would it be possible to make a working bombard?"
It was and here it is finished and in situ.

From the bottom Picture it can be seen I´ve test fired it again to see if it held to the base(the touch hole Shows burn marks )

The bods have got more sense..they´ve all run off and hidden.

The Barrel is made from a length of brass tubing, covered in paper and then card rings added to give the shape of a bombard. All glued on with PVA.
It´s been test fired already, I didn´t want to add it to the base and have the thing explode.

And here it is in action after being added to the base :-D  Sometimes it takes a second or two for the vid to play and the microphone didn´t pick up the noise too well but it did make quite an impressive bang (evident by the "peep" of suprise my wife makes near the end, I didn´t tell her it was about to be fired)  Great fun :-D

Ancient Christians (Strelets)

24 pieces which make 27 bods (there´s two sets of pairs) which for the Money makes it one very worth while set. The sculpting is very good and there´s very little flash to be dealt with. The ones with bases still attached are to join the inhabitants of Styrow-on-the-Foam, the rest will join the inhabitants of Scalpere Aedificare.

All the poses in the usual Family photo

Priests and baptism (?) The one Holding the bowl. The bod Comes with the bowl Held sidewasy due to the casting process but with a bit of dipping in hot water (use tweezers ) the wrist can be twisted so the bowl lays flat.

Jacob had, as usual misunderstood. He thought that they were having a whip round for him and now he´s feeling more than a Little cross.

Scribe and rich couple. The scribe actually has an ink pot, Stylus (a pen made from bronze, bone or iron) and Vellum. The vellum would be rolled onto a wooden roller with knobs at both ends  called an umbilicus which  appears to be missing.

Prostitute, Client and pimp with his Price list. Not really, I just set them up like this.

The "pimp" is Holding a codex, pages  stitched together  at the spine and bound between wooden boards.  

A stoning or a street robbery?

Shock and Horror and  Hiding away from the sometimes brutal ancient Roman life

 

The set has some wonderfully sculpted faces

My two favourites from the set.

They really are that small :-D

Age of Tudors (Linear-b)

Before I start I´ve been asked to make one Thing clear...Linear-b and Strelets are different manufacturers. It appears as if a lot of people seem to think they are somehow joined at the hip...they aren´t :-D

Now that´s over...the latest set from Linear-b and what a lovely set it is. Tudor civilians. In my opinion there´s never enough civvies in any scale or period. Not only are they great for dios but also camp scenes and little vignettes on the gaming table.
In the set there´s  14 pieces that give  a total of 16 bods (the piggyback and Mother / child Count as two apiece) times 4 sprues....56 pieces or 64 bods depending on the method  of counting.
Very little flash that Needs removing and with the amount of bods in the set it´ll give me some scope for experimenting with different colours.....and maybe a bit of conversions.

" the one that looks like she could be Anne Boleyn..now what if I was to remove her head and......... " .:-D

PARTY!!!! The only slight problem with the poses.....the way the bod is holding his companion...it would hurt like hell, if not be near impossible, to hold her the way he is....

The ladies. Gable Hoods and gowns for the rich, Coif and front-laced bodice with dress for the poor.

Mrs Miggins (right) is obviously not amused about something.
The really good thing about them is that they are smaller (shorter) than the males.

The Monk is getting a telling off about his level of  liquid consumption

The "dudes" Slashed doublets, hose and codpieces.

An old soldier gets alms from a rich bod. The Walking stick is missing the bottom half in a lot of the sprues but it´s easy enough to remedy. Just cut away the top half of the stick and push a pin up through the base  and into the bod.  

Duck for tea ?.

Size wise they fit well to most other manufacturers. Just as a representitive example using unbased bods, from left to right, Italeri, Linear-b and Nikolai.

A bit blurry but still, it can be seen,  the bods in the set have, alongside some really good detail,  they´ve got  very good faces.

A wee bit on the end of the medieval range and a couple of them could be usefull for the Elizabethan era but in Styrow-on-the-Foam all medievals are welcome.
I certainly hope there will be a second set of tudors from Linear-b and with more clothing styles, like the French Hood and puffed sleeves for the females, Pluderhosen for the males and some more working folk.

Norman Train (strelets)

Nope, not the "choo choo" Train but the bagage one.
I´ve not put together or painted the wagons...I prefer to build my own and anyway, the 4 wheeled "Ladder" wagon in the set apparently didn´t really come into existance until the early 15th century so it wouldn´t fit into a norman set anyway. (Source - The Art, Science, and Technology of Medieval Travel by David H.Kennett 2008)
The 2 mules are also not to be seen, they´ve wandered off due to the Psaltery musik.

All the bods from the set having a rest. What could be better, a nice rest whilst having a Story with Musical accompliment.

The bod stting on the box. It Looks like he´s playing a Psaltery,  that or it´s an Abacus.

The wagon Drivers. What the bod on the lfet has got in his left Hand I don´t really know but it could be some type  of lute

The female characters

 The crazy old sheep hurder, Spike of Milligan  and "no further sir!" the norman Train guard.



The dray horses. This pair are very nice sculpts...probably among the best nags produced by Strelets.The question is, would htey have used such horses to pull wagons?
The origin of the Shire Horse dates back to a cold blooded heavy horse first mentioned in around 1066 probably brought into England after the Norman Conquest. From this developed the "English Great Horse" of the Middle Ages often spoken of by Medieval writers.
These are not for the lowly task of pulling wagons, this was only really started in the 16th century.

 They were more likely to have been used as war horses  and not drays.