Hectic Days.

Next Saturday will see Jim the painter ,Young Garth and your gentle Author getting up at first Sparrow Fart to make the 2 and a half is hour trip to Claymore in Edinburgh so this week will be all about preparation for that fine event.
Not that last week was particularly slow .A shipment came in from the USA - nine big boxes of toys- all had to be unpacked and sorted and the back orders sent on their way - still a few of those to do there only beiong 24 hours in a day but no worries they'll be on the post van in the coming week.
Amongst a clutch of new gear are additions to the Bluemoon 15mm - well 18mm - AWI range- some cracking Hessians which would fit well with an Prussian army of Frederick the Average. Also some lovely waggons fir for most horse and musket armies. Now as you know I'm not a 15mm dude but Bluemoon have caused me to go Marlburian and I can see me perhaps falling for the Napoleonics and possibly the Colonials when they appear- as long as somone else paints them of course- when iyt comes to actual brushwork I'll keep what left of my eyesight thanks and stick to 30mm and 40mm .
So the first pic shows some Bluemoon Confederates painted by John Reidyand a fine job he has done of 'em too.
Actually managed to get a game in Yesterday. Floating Jeff was in the chair so no surprise it was a Naval affair set in 1942 off the isalnd of Fucanal. An US navy force has to destroy Japanese transports before they unload their troops for the land campaign on the island...
Rules used wewre General Quarters 3 rd edition - this stuff is Jeff's speciality and as an Admiral I'm a good powder monkey... the other player was Andrew the Tekkie and Young Garth turned up late due to a surfiet of Gin.
The Japanese force of 6 destroyers and 5 crusiers took on a similar sized us force. The game opened with a Japense destroyer attack on the US crusiers which saw the USS Pensacola repeatedly struck by long lance torpedoes sink with all hands . First Blood to the Emperor. Banzai !! .
The next few turns saw gun exchanges which were largly inconclusive although the USS Brooklyn suffered damage as did the IJN Tone and Kayuga . The second Japanese destroyer flotilla was outmanovred by Andrew the tekkie and was too far away to effect the outcome. Nevertheless the US fleet steamed into the planned long lance killing zone and over 2 moves something like 30 torpedoes were launched. Not a single hit not one BUMMER!! Gunfire however had some effect and the Brooklyn suffered further damage and Indianapolis turned turtle and sank .
The US destroyers had not so far taken much part - aside from exchanging long range shots with the Japanese 1st Flotilla as it fled after the inditial torpedo attack . Now hwever they sped past the 2 heavily damaged Japanese crusiers- Tnoe was dead in the water repairing engines- and launched a torpero attack on the anchored merchant ships as they unloaded. While some stores and men had been landed the resulant titanic explosians meant that despite their heavier losses the US fleet had achieved its objective- on the final move too -another Bummer - .
A cracking game this Once I get copies of the pic Garth took I'll post them for the record the ships were all 1/1200 scale . We've tried the 1/9,000,000 or whatever those specks of Fly- shyte are suppoed to be but we keep coming back to models that you can actually see and tell what they are.
So until I get those pics from Garth the rest of the photos are from my own very small WW2 Naval Collection
The first ship picture is a Close up of the Graf Spee a metal Kit by Mountford I think. Next is HMS Ajax again a metal kit and finally the Admiral Hipper - an old Airfix plastic job . All have been painted by yours truly it makes a change from little men.
The ACW pic are of course Bluemoon. and yes they are 18mm - little chaps but I've seen 28mm with less style.