Another project? Seriously??

 Yes, I know I'm painting SYW Austrians..and yes..I am still working on my Muscovites....and adding a few bits and pieces to my Poles...oh and yes there are still some 18mm Crimean War figures on the painting blocks......and I do have a few more Vikings to go.......but the conversations went something like this......

FIRST CONVERSATION
Me: "Hey Ross what army are you going to use?"
Ross: "Assyrians."
Me: "Do you have any opponents for them?"
Ross: "No"
Me: "So your army is Assyrian- 8th and 7th Centuries BC  ...right?"
Ross: "Yep"
Me: "Any particular ruler?"
Ross: "Yep."
Me : "You're a man of many words. Which one?"
Ross: "Ashurbanipal"
Me: "Ruled from 669BC until 631BC? Considered the last Great Assyrian King?"
Ross: "Yep"

Hmmmmm.... I did a bit of reading.

SECOND CONVERSATION
My kids:"Hey dad, What do you want for your birthday?"
Me : "Elamites"
My kids: "What?"
Me, rolling my eyes : "Elamites. Actually Neo-Elamites. In 28mm. A people who fought the Assyrians. Eureka Miniatures make some."
My kids..rolling their eyes. "Okay".
(NOTE- They KNEW who Eureka Miniatures were!!)

THIRD  and FOURTH CONVERSATION
My kids: "Hey dad, What do you want for father's day?"
Me : " Elamites"
My kids..rolling their eyes again: "Okay".

My wife: "John, what would you like for Father's day?"
Me: " Elamites"
My wife- looking across at the kids who just nodded. "Er...ok...."

FINAL CONVERSATION.
Me: " I'm gonna do a Neo-Elamite army from the 7th Century BC."
Ross: "Why?"
Me: "They were opponents of your Assyrians. Ashurbanipal destroyed the Elamite kingdom in 653BC or so. There is a relief in the British Museum that depicts the crushing of the Elamite army. It's called the Battle of Ulai Relief. "
Ross: "Good choice." ( very talkative- TWO words!!)

A game of 40k

I hope readers of this blog won't object to a 'sci-fi' post!

My son and his friends are very big GW 40K fans and they get together to play games as often as life permits! All in their 20s, it is kinda nice to hear all the yelling and screaming coming from my garage as they dish out pain with 'fleshborers', 'plasma guns' , 'powerfists' or any other such weaponry.

He recently had 5 of them over playing a mini-tournament in the garage over a full Saturday. It may not be my historical stuff, but it's gaming nevertheless and my terrain is getting used. I put a couple of pictures at the bottom. 

Before the day that he held the friendly tournament, my son ran me through the new 40K (10th Edition!!??) rules. I hadn't played in years and my old Tyranids were brought out to swarm, natter, twitch, screech and devour.

The mission was to recover the remains of some imperial communications beacons. ( Objectives)

In my case, as the Tyranids, we have no use for them- but we had to get them to stop him using them for calling reinforcements. He needed to plug into them to call in more of his Chaos Legion...whatever that is!

Our game. I was Tyranids and he was some sort of smelly putrid miasma producing, disease carrying mutated space marines......I think I heard the word 'Nurgle'.....but he could have just been clearing his throat.

My deployment and plan. The beacons and comms equipment was spaced across the middle of the table.

War of the Austrian Succession and The Seven Years War

 Hmm.....another post..... another project. Early this year Ross and I were pondering the possibilities of New Year resolutions- what to paint.  In the end, after long deliberations we settled on the Seven Years War. We had played games in the past using Honours of War and liked the very fast nature of them. So we sent a bulk order away to Crusader miniatures- Austrians for me and French for him. Now why no Prussians ? I hear you ask....well we just preferred these two armies- and they were opponents in the War of the Polish Succession and the War of the Austrian Succession. In the Austrian Succession the uniforms are similar to the SYW.  Below are our painting efforts so far and we will have to order the cuirassiers, dragoons, officers, artillery etc etc...but for now it's fun painting these guys.

Hungarian Infantry from the army of Maria Therese in front. German infantry behind.