Workbench...

Exactly 1,000 points of WAB Celts

I'm having one of those phases when I don't feel like painting, largely because I am overwhelmed by what I could paint.

I was getting on well with some early Germans for our game at the club tomorrow but then when I saw the player's instructions for the barbarians it became obvious that it was really an Ancient Britons rather than a Germans game. So having prepared a load of Germans I had to redo the army as Celts. I don't have quite enough Britons for the 140 figures I needed but a few of the younger less beardy Germans filled out the centres of the units and shouldn't be too noticeable. Above is my 1,000 points worth and Andy is bringing another 6 warbands. Should be about 325 figures with the slingers. My little boy is on half term so he can come along too. I will make sure he does the dice throwing, he is much better at it than me. This is the first picture for one of my blogs with my new 10 megapixel, 12x zoom Lumix. It certainly takes a lovely picture. Maybe too lovely as it will show up all my blodgy painting even more!

I've been upgrading all my technology lately. First, I got the nice 22" flat screen for the computer as I was having trouble reading stuff on the old CRT one. Then I bought a new PC as mine was really on it's last legs: it only had 80GB of memory and a combination of iTunes and photographs meant that it was struggling. It would take about 15-20 minutes to boot up in the morning and the daily anti-virus update download would bring it to grinding halt for 45 minutes. So, I am very pleased with my shiny new machine. I've got 1TB of memory now and it starts up in seconds rather than minutes. Much better! We've also just invested in a Playstation 3, theoretically for Guy, but having said he didn't need one I gave in when I found out it would play Blu Ray discs. I immediately went out and bought King Kong, Close Encounters and Kingdom of Heaven, which I watched last night. I have to say the HD picture is fantastic and it seems to have dealt with the issue of "image float" where something moves quickly on the screen and the image has to "catch up". Of course it made me want to go and buy a load of Perry Crusaders (I have quite a few painted Turcomen already) but so far I have resisted!

Spears in the top, Thracians on the bottom

I couldn't get any more of the units in B&Q for my lead pile overflow but I bought something similar but with bigger drawers. I have taken those figures from the smaller drawers, where I have a large amount spread over multiple small drawers, and put them in the big drawers. Interestingly, the figures I had the most of were WW1 Germans, ECW and Thracians. The lead pile overflow is now neatly stored away.

I now need to find some figures to get working on again. I've got quite a few nearly finished: Uruk Hai scouts, Dutch Jaegers, German WW1, Baluchi matchlockmen, Zulus, Normans, WW1 Highlanders, Sudan Highlanders, Late Saxons, Celtic slingers, French Napoleonic...

Working on the Ancient Germans has got me thinking that maybe I should just try to finish at least one army. The ones which are closest are the Celts, the Germans, Early Imperial Romans, Wars of the Roses and Chinese Back of Beyond. The Celts put me off because I need to do a load of chariots. The WotR need knights which means heraldry, ugh! The Germans and Romans are more straightforward but at the moment I am thinking about doing some more Chinese as Guy has shown an interest in them.

Some of my Warlord Chinese. Copplestone Castings figures

I did have a game with them a few years ago with someone at the club who had Russians. Recently, I also watched the Tom Selleck film High Road to China, although I had to buy the DVD in Sweden as it's not on sale in the UK or US for some reason. It's not a brilliant movie but it does have bi-planes, Waziri tribesmen, British Infantry and must be the only one out there that features a 1930's Chinese Warlord Army. They even got the cap badges right!

Anyway, I will see what I feel like in the next few days. I won't have much painting time, though, as I am in Manchester for two days next week and then I am in Canada for a fortnight.

Finally, I have ordered some more of Artizan's new Arab Revolt figures as the Arabs on camels have come out and I really like painting camels! I am reading Michael Asher's biography of Lawrence of Arabia at present and am just getting to the Arab revolt bit. Oh dear, this could be a bad one!