Not painting in Switzerland...

Sir Henry Havelock: hero of the Indian Mutiny

Well, here I am in not very sunny Geneva with a lot of health ministers. This is a shame as my painting was going quite well lately. I finished a Gripping Beast plastic Viking test figure and will put up something next week on my Dark Ages blog. Not entirely convinced, I have to say.

Almost finished as well is the long awaited Musketeer Miniatures Great Northern War Russian command figures I bought at Salute and, likewise, I hope to have these on the blog before the end of next week. I'm also working on some more Zulu War figures, a couple of Fantasy pirates from Black Scorpion, some Foundry Swashbucklers, a Perry Wars of the Roses cannon, some Crusader Normans and my first Immortal Miniatures plastic Greek. The usual focus, in fact! Basically, I am trying to finish some of the figures that have been sitting on my desk for far too long. The Norman knights have made an appearance because we have been doing Hastings as part of Guy's common entrance revision and I enjoyed painting the Wars of the Roses mounted figures recently. I used to hate painting mounted figures until I discovered that if I stuck the figures on the horses before painting it was a lot easier.

I didn't have anything on my camera's card to illustrate this entry with except this bust of Sir Henry Havelock which is tucked away in the basement of the Lord Mayor of London's official residence, Mansion House. The bust is by William Behnes who was also responsible for the statue of Havelock in Trafalgar Square (which Red Ken Livingstone wanted to replace with something more ""relevant"). I took this picture a few weeks ago when I took Charlotte on "take your daughters to work day" and I arranged a tour of the Mansion House for her.

Anyway, given the paucity of pictorial material available to me it leads quite nicely on to my contemplation of Mutineer Miniatures Indian Mutiny range which is coming along very nicely; with new British Infantry, Gurkhas and Highlanders out (oh, no more tartan!). Also very welcome are the first scenic items which include some houses and we are promised parts of the walls of Delhi soon. The latter has helped crystallise what part of the war I want to concentrate on. Street fighting in the city fits more with the skirmish nature of the figures, I think. Anyway, it will be back to my Mutiny figures once I have cleared the current figures I am working on.

I notice that the first of the Great War Miniatures Crimean War figures are out and hope that I can resist these. I am still thinking about the Matabele figures but they are really too similar to Zulus to think about at present and I still have a lot of Ngoni to paint too.

Currently I am reading the novel The Odin Mission by James Holland which I picked up in the airport on the way out here yesterday. Its an OK time waster and those who say it is a World War 2 Sharpe are spot on but the war in Norway makes an unusual World War 2 setting. Militarily, it seems quite accurate even including the German Panzerkampfwagen Neubaufahrzeuge VI which was used in this campaign, where it performed rather poorly.

The original Panzer VI: way before the Tiger. Photographed in Lillehammer in April 1940

My Uncle Keith served in Norway with the Sherwood Foresters before transferring to the Airborne Division later in the war so I am, yet again, toying with the idea of getting a few WW2 troops for a skirmish game (The Two Fat Lardies rules for WW2 seem quite popular at Guildford). Failing that the Warhammer Great War rules would probably work for a platoon level game.

Right, it's time for a Martini I think. Let's hope my lovely new friend from Guyana is in the bar!