New troops for Bolt Action, Lasalle and MeG

Bolt Action Soviet infantry ... cuz you can never have enough of them...

20mm French line infantry for the Lasalle project - these are Newline 20mm metals
 

Shown here with some Hat plastics for scale - they match pretty well.

Some US 101 Airborne also for Bolt Action - these figures are only okay - less versatile than either the Germans or Soviets I have done. 

 And I blew the dust off a 10mm Magister Militum Arab Conquest army I bought ages ago for mass battle game to be determined. Well, I ordered a copy of the MeG (Mortem et Gloriam) Compendium which I really like the look of. These guys can face my Byzantines! Five blocks of heavy foot with cavalry and light infantry still to come.

Back to Naps...

Not sleeping - but back to 20mm Napoleonics. A little while ago a chum convinced me to build an army to play with him. Now, I have have painted hundreds of 1/72 Naps in the past, then sold them in favour of 10mm. But chum wants to play something more tactical, and 20mm is a nice scale to paint, so here I am once again painting something I have painted before. Deja vu...

The start of my Lasalle Peninsular French - one battalion of converged Carabiniers (Elite Light Infantry), two battalions of converged Grenadiers in bicorn (Elite Infantry) a couple of commanders and artillery limbers. The infantry are Hat and the officers and artillery train are the venerable and barely usable Airfix models. Those sculpts are approximately my vintage. In the queue are Newline 20mm infantry to fill out the regulars and maybe some other plastics.

The pandemic has created absolute havoc in my day job as a university department chair and professor - but it should prove to give me additional hobby time once the chaos of sudden class closures and campus research closure starts to settle down. HA! Still have an 18% budget cut to manage....

Back in action

It's been quiet here for almost 10 days, I was in Norway to give a talk for the University of Oslo's Darwin Day and that took a good chunk of time away from home. Guess how much it costs to have the local el cheapo pizzeria make and deliver a pie? $50. Yep. One pint of beer in the pub was $14. The taxi meter reads $10 before your ass even touches the seat. Holy crap...glad the expenses were paid by the host.

So, after my hiatus I am back to the bench and still have much gusto for Napoleonics in 1/72 after whipping off those highlanders. I picked up a copy of Black Powder on Amazon for an amazing $20

Then scored a copy of Lasalle from Sam Mustafa

I've decided to do Waterloo themed forces, focussed on the Anglo-Allies and the actions around Quatre Bras. This matches up with my holdings of 1/72 that need to be painted, with a few minor additions. Mark has decided to try to start with some French so I am concentrating on the Allies to start with. This week I knocked off some Dutch and Belgians that have been on the shelf for a while, including Belgian regulars (Hat):
Dutch milita (also Hat):
And I rebased about 40 British regulars to add to the highlanders from last week (old Airfix):
We played Black Powder at the club on Tuesday and I really enjoyed it (thanks Bruce!), it was easy to pick up, colourful, and fun. I think this will look superb in 1/72.

Next up: Black Brunswickers