New ground cloth

I dropped by a local ReStore charity shop a couple of weeks ago and picked up a nice offcut of green baize-like material. Experimenting on a small corner showed it takes acrylic paints well, which is good to know. I laid it out to see what it looks like with some terrain on it so I could get an idea of how to colour it, but before I put any trees out I saw there's an issue with the river.

Too much of the base green shows through. Although rivers usually tend not to be blue but an indeterminate muddy brown in reality, I don't want this to look like a road. Since I have some offcuts of blue poster card handy, I slid a length under the river (shown at the bottom of the photo) to see what that did for the look. I think daubing the card with a little brown and green paint in places then sticking it to the underside of the river sections will give a more realistic look. What do you all think? Ideas and suggestions welcome.

A Note of Caution

For some reason I got two emails from Blogger in the past 24 hours, that read thus:-

Hello,

     As you may know, our Community Guidelines (link deleted)
describe the boundaries for what we  allow-- and don't allow-- on Blogger. Your post titled "Second batch of  crossbowmen" was flagged to us for review. We have determined that it 
violates our guidelines and deleted the post, previously at  (link deleted)

 
     Why was your blog post deleted?
     Your content has violated our Malware and Viruses policy. Please visit 
our Community Guidelines page linked in this email to learn more.

     We encourage you to review the full content of your blog posts to make 
sure they are in line with our standards as additional violations could 
result in termination of your blog.

     For more information, please review the following resources:

     Terms of Service: (link deleted)
     Blogger Community Guidelines: (link deleted)

     Sincerely,

     The Blogger Team

These were followed by two more emails telling me the posts had been reinstated. Alan (Tradgardmaster) and others report the same thing. 

I've no idea why Blogger has its corporate panties in a bunch-it could be automated stuff that went haywire-but just in case there is trouble afoot please ensure your malware/virus protection is up to date.

On a lighter note I hope to get some figures on the table tomorrow to engage in the first Lion Rampant game.

Another book ~ Wings over the Desert

This arrived today...

It's the story of the author's father, Eric Seward, a RFC pilot in Palestine during the Great War. I looked for this for some time after seeing it mentioned on Michael Scott's blog where he writes about his own interest in the theatre. Michael was collecting Pendraken Miniatures 10mm for WW1 Middle East, but it seems he's let the project lapse? My own interest is kind of on again/off again, although I'll almost certainly go ahead with a Pendraken order when funds permit.

The book turned up on Alibris, which is an excellent source for reference books on all kinds of subjects. Their service is good, hampered only by the USPS's tardiness in delivering.

Last Hope Island

I picked this up at a local Dollar Tree for, yes, $1. 

Last Hope Island's a fascinating read about Britain and Europe during WW2, with several snippets I wasn't aware of. The author is rightly caustic about the sheer amount of amateurism, incompetence and infighting that afflicted organisations like SOE and MI6 in the early years. There's a chapter on the infamous Englanderspeil saga where the incompetence really cost the lives of dozens of brave agents. Thankfully, as we all know, it came good in the end.

Six Knights of England ~ almost...

Progress (finally) on some of the remaining mounted men-at-arms from my original (30 years+ old) collection. 

They've had their dip in dark varnish. One figure fell off the peg and into the dip, leading to several minutes of hilarity... not, as I tried to retrieve the slippery little bugger. That's him on the right.

All that remains is to base them up. I have another six mounted figures like these, but they need more work to get them ready since they have broken parts which need replacing. The same applies to a batch of foot figures, both serjeants and yeomen. One crowd that shouldn't take too long is a group of six falchion men. Under the Lion Rampant rules they ought to be twelve strong, so I'll just mix them in with other foot figures and count them as upgraded rather than buy a new batch.

Hopefully I'll get them all on the table for a game before long...