The hobby week - 19 February - 25 February 2022

Here's the summary of my hobby activity for the last full week of February:

Gaming

I played a solo game of Ambush Alley in the French Indo-China War.  Read about it here

Painting/modelling  

Quite busy with a lot of different bits going on:
  • Completed the Battlezone Native raiders detailed here.
  • Completed the old Blitz Miniatures figures that I'd swapped the heads on to make them more suitable for ALN fighters. 
  • Reworked the bases on my old Blitz Miniatures WW2 goumier figures that I'm using for ALN fighters.
  • Completed an old Battlefield Miniatures WW2 French para.  I also reworked the bases on the existing painted  Battlefield Miniatures WW2 French paras 
  • Painted up and based a Battlezone Marine who'll do perfectly as a French officer in Algeria.
  • Nearly completed a Battlezone MG team with just the base to do. 
  • I cleaned up another seven Battlezone US Marines and took their heads off ready for a swap. 
  • I cleaned up the pack of five Battlezone Red Army riflemen. 
Busy, messy work area

Research

  • Getting to the latter stages of A Savage War of Peace.  Not too much reading as I've been distracted a lot this week, there's been a lot going on in the world!
  • I spent a bit of time looking into The Silver Bayonet.  I was very dismissive of this when it was first released but I have found myself reading about it and watching various videos on YouTube this week.  I do like the game concept but I'm still not taken by the period.  Having already got Dracula's America and the associated supernatural element,  I have to ask period aside, what does The Silver Bayonet give me above that?  However, it has led me to look again into the earlier Revolutionary Wars which I find more interesting.  One to keep for the future maybe.   

Purchases

I bought my first game mat.  I've been looking at what I'm going to do for my Algerian War project and wanted something that could also be used for Mediterranean theatres or even northern India at a pinch.  I did some initial costings on makings some boards or my own mat and it would have been as expensive as buying one.  And although I do like making terrain I couldn't face the mess!  I managed to get hold of a Deep Cut Studios 3'x3' Savannah cloth mat from Wayland Games.  Service was excellent - free P&P, ordered Saturday and with me Tuesday.  It's not perfect but good enough and as it seemed to be the last one in the country I'm quite happy to have it!  

ALN in the djebel (with a large crease!)

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