Friday 15 April 2022

On the Workbench: ECW Foot Regiments and WW2 Ships

This will almost certainly be the last blog post before my house move. If all goes according to plan, in a little over 4 weeks I will have a new wargames room enabling the resumption of tabletop action.

In the meantime more units have been completed:

Two Royalist regiments have been added to the inventory. These are Salisbury's redcoats and Molyneux's bluecoats, both of Wentworth's brigade. 

Continued -

For Defending the Malay Barrier campaign, the Takao, a Japanese heavy cruiser. This was a new model purchased from Navwar, and I have to say I was a little disappointed. It may be the case that this is due for an update but one side of this model was poorly defined. Several air holes were also present. I filled the holes and attempted to more clearly define its starboard side by using a combination of filler and filing. 

This is the offending side which does not look too bad after some work but as you can see, I struggled to highlight neatly the foredeck due to the poor definition. 

I already had two Takao class cruisers in the batch of models purchased in the auction mentioned in a previous post. These were utterly dreadful and I am guessing, possibly first generation sculpts from the '70's. No amount of work or creative painting would have made them presentable.

Interestingly, on the paperwork that came with the models, an announcement was made of several new models, one of which was the Chokai. This was a modified Takao class cruiser which I will need for this campaign. It will be interesting to see how they compare.

And finally my very first USN ships. These are Wickes class destroyers also by Navwar. Navwar currently do not produce the Clemson class needed for the campaign but there is so little difference between the two they will be represented by the Wickes.

11 comments:

  1. I see the Royalists uints are shot-lite / pike-heavy c.f. the Parliamentarians - will this apply to all units? How are the Pony Wars and Zulu projects coming on - on hold 'til after the move, which hope your move goes smoothly.

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    1. Many regiments on both sides were pike heavy, but particularly the Royalists. Some though more closely aligned with the later war ratios of 1:2 pike to musket.

      Having a break from Pony Wars but not anticipated for long. Whilst it can be a pain having so many projects underway simultaneously, the bonus being that it can keep everything reasonably fresh flitting between each as the mood takes.

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  2. Nice work as always Jon and well done for making the Navwar stuff look so good. Fingers crossed for the house move!

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  3. I do like the way your figures and ships 'pop'. Nice work!

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  4. Yes that paint style really works - wish I had the confidence! Am also well impressed by the masts on the destroyers ...

    As for Navwar, I am a huge fan, but like you I have occasionally had a poorly moulded model, which is a bit disappointing when others are nice and crisp. I don't have any technical insight so don't know whether the mould is not filling properly or whether the mould itself is worn out. If it's the latter I do wonder whether we can realistically expect continuing upgrades - I imagine Tony must think about giving it up one day, although it doesn't bear thinking about!

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    1. Many thanks Colkitto. If Tony does give it up then hopefully he will sell on the business for it to continue. Like you I would dread the day it ceases production as, despite the fact that some of the sculpts are a little dodgy, the range is very extensive and reasonably priced. I bought my first Navwar in the early '70's so have an emotional attachment too!

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  5. Yes it has just always been there, hasn't it? :-)

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