British transports and a club visit

Yet again, these have taken me way longer than they should have. I initially wanted to get them finished before I went to Broadside but the best laid plans gang aft agley, eh?

First up are the two little universal carriers, and I mean little. I was surprised at quite how tiny these models are, and also at how damn long they take to paint. Part of that is the fact that they have 8 crew between them, so it's not just painting two vehicles, it's painting almost another entire squad
Not much of note here really, except the decision to make one of the carriers crew into Polish airborne. I was umming and ahhing over red or green berets, and then I spoke to a Polish colleague at work the other day, who told me about her father who escaped Poland to join the British army, and then couldn't go home until 1989 due to the communist regime there threatening his life. I had to include some Polish in my army after hearing that. Plus I really like the idea of some diversity in this army. Painting caucasian skin every single time starts to feel a bit samey after the 90th figure, so grey berets happened to salve my liberal bleeding heart.

Only one decent picture of these, unfortunately. I was taking the photos outside with my back to the sun, and I didn't consider my own shadow...

Next up is a warlord M5 half track. Bought because it's a little more historically accurate for a british army, but I must say it was a pig to put together and the tracks had so much flash you have to practically carve some shape back into them. If I was to make another, I'd go with the plastic m3 kit instead. For the sake of a battery box and a few other details it's not worth the hassle.
I wanted a lot of stowage on this and still might hang a few more bits on the side to break up the profile and the lines of stowage thing I've got going on, but it's serviceable for now and I want to get the damnable thing off my desk for a while. I also want to convert some passengers for it so it doesn't look so empty, and I have a spare sprue left over from the British starter box to do it with, but again that's a task for another time. The stowage is all from Warlord except the roll of camo net which I made myself from medical guaze.

Alongside actually getting stuff finished, I have also been out and played some games. I went to the Maidstone Wargames Society open day yesterday, and had a good game of Lion Rampant on a beautiful board depicting Sluys in the Netherlands during the hundred years war, all made by Stephen from the club. I was keen to play this game as the board and figures were awesome, but also because I have a copy of The Pikeman's Lament which I intend to use for ECW skirmishes in 28mm, and I wanted to give the rules a try as it is based on LR. It's a fantastic ruleset, really easy to pick up and easy to modify. Perfect, really.
The scenario was a fictitious one where the English had to burn the four thatched buildings in the centre of the table, and I as the French had to defend them. It was a close result despite a wobbly start that would probably have been less close if my rolling had been anything other than atrocious all game, especially with regards to reloading and firing the my cannon, but I made the English work for their victory so I was happy. I could also have used the boast element to my advantage a bit more, but I didn't know the system so I'll call it a good first game despite the loss.

The board at the start of the action, including a lot of lovely vignettes and peasant models.

Ignore my ugly ass and weird hand angle and look at the pretty ships. Credit for this photo goes to MWS.

I also played a little FoG, talked Badgers and Burrows (I think it was called) with a guy from the Milton Hundred, and chatted a bit about Gaslands (the rulebook for which has dropped through my letterbox as I have been typing this!). Overall, a great morning out and I'll definitely be going back as the club plays a lot of the games that I am currently interested in taking up.