Sunday 19 June 2011

Phalanx

Well, had a wonderful day at Phalanx yesterday. It's the St Helens Spartans show, and I've been for the last two years running. It's a good size gig, and very friendly, so I have enjoyed both trips.

This time I brought along a few bits to the well-organised Bring & Buy, and waved goodbye to my 40mm Fictional Lace Wars project, which went to a grateful guy from Yorkshire called Steve. I also cleared away some painted resin buildings and a few books, so ended up with money in my purse.

Naturally I took advantage of the wares on display, and added a few Italeri tanks to my fictional WWII-era forces; a box of Italian M13/40s and a box of Semoventes.

I also invested in a few reduced-price boxes of Strelets and Emhar figures for my "Steam Wars", which are going to be set in a fictional late Victorian-era Europe, with the usual two main antagonists, Moldovia and Vulgaria. I then picked up a couple of Ironclad Miniatures Steam Tanks which caught my eye, so they should be arriving next week. These will go with the cheap Lledo steam trucks I'm getting from eBay.

With the armies clad in colourful and rather OTT pre-WW1 uniforms, I think the project will look very pretty and I can mix in loads of different figures and uniform styles. For example, so far the cavalry forces of both sides include Boer War Australian Lancers, WW1 German Hussars and Cuirassiers, and Russo-Turkish War Russian Hussars and Dragoons. I might even find a place for a unit of Bengal Lancers in there. British Guardsmen in redcoats bearskins are, of course, de rigueur for Her Majesty Queen Victoria's Imperial Interventionist Force.

I think I am going to have a LOT of fun with this project, and it looks as if it will be even cheaper than the fictional WWII-era one, as long as I don't invest in too many of Ironclad Miniatures' lovely and very tempting little steam tanks.