Our 2014 Vacation Concludes: Curt and Sarah take Paris

The two of us with the little place we rented overlooking the Seine...

The final leg of our vacation saw us infiltrating Paris. Even though its packed to the patisseries full of Parisians Sarah and I still love the town. It's such a great city with so much to offer. Food, museums, shopping, pastries, and then there are the women. There is something about Parisian women that I always find fascinating - those amazing, haughty creatures, who float on clouds of perfume, cigarette smoke and long scarves always seem to have that, well, there is no better phrase for it: je ne sais quois.

We're big fans of cycling and so we were both delighted and yet gutted to see that we had arrived right in the midst of the Paris 'Tweed Ride', which is a yearly bike outing where cyclists are asked to dress in 30s/40s era clothes and take to the streets for a mass turn about the city. (The French, being typically French, call it 'Le Ride Beret Baguette'.)

The Paris 'Tweed Ride'

These Tweed Rides usually conclude with a big picnic and we saw hundreds of 'tweedsters' toting yard-long baguettes and bottles of wine. It looked to be an incredible amount of fun and we wished we could have been better organized so we could have participated. Next time I'll definitely have to pack my jodhpurs and soft peaked cap.

My new vision quest: A Victoire porter bicycle, custom crafted for Berluti. Yes, those are wood rims - mental.

We visited the Musee de Cluny, Sarah's favourite museum, which has a fantastic collection of medieval artifacts including the mysterious six tapestries of the Lady and the Unicorn. These have been recently restored and I very much recommend a visit.

Sarah at the Musee de Cluny.

Me taking a mid-march break at the Jardin des Tuileries.

We also made the pilgrimage to Les Invalides to see what was the featured exhibition. I was delighted to discover that it was on Alexandre Dumas and the French Musketeers (both  historic and fictional), so Sarah and I were delighted to take it in.

At the entrance to the exhibit they had several costumes you could try on for size. As you can see Sarah looks quite fetching in this feathered chapeau...

...whereas I finally found the perfect outfit to go with my dodgy beard and moustache. 

The sword of the real Athos - Now, how cool is that!

So what did I acquire during our travels? Mostly books, which are the absolute devil to pack and drag around, but I can't help myself. 
- In the UK I bought the exhibition catalogue for 'Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK' which was showing at the British Library (f*cking love that place). 
- At a bookstore in St Pancras Station I nabbed a copy of 'The Wipers Times'. (At my work we're in the midst of a huge Great War newspaper digitization project and I thought it fit in nicely with that.) 
- In Madrid I got a wonderful hardback volume depicting the arms and uniforms of the Spanish Civil War (with many excellent colour plates). 
- In France I picked up the museum catalogue of the Musketeer exhibit, a book on French paratroopers in Indochina (in full colour) and a wonderful book of photographs taken during the liberation of Paris.

For gaming I picked up:
- a 28mm scale Hispano Souza armoured car from Minairons Miniatures;
- some 15mm fuel dumps for SAS/LRDG raiding;
- 28mm 'Milady & Household Staff' from Brigade Games for future Musketeer nonsense; 
- a copy of 'Jugula' with the intent on some future gladiatorial gaming; 
- and Alf very kindly gifted me with a wonderful prototype of a Spanish church and some excellent palm tree breastworks for Indochina.

Last but not least, some of the most prized items which I toted home were the wonderful painted figures I received from many friends well-met. Thank you all! It was a tremendous honour to meet you and I look forward to when our paths cross again.

Much-valued additions to the painting cabinet.

I'll end the post with a pic taken of us by our friend Gary while we were wondering down Rue Poulletier on Ile St Louis during our last evening in Paris. A suitable ending to a wonderful trip. 

...and, yes, we're already planning for the next one...

My 10th and Last Entry to the Lead Painters' League - Belgian Refugees, August 1914

The final round of the 8th Lead Painters' League asked the participants for submissions focused on the Great War. With this in mind, I decided to once again draw upon a previous entry to the Challenge, this time a group of greyscale Belgian refugees. The only real change I made from the original composition (but an important one, I think) is my respectful nod to the haunting 'Little Girl in the Red Coat' from Spielberg's Schindler's List. These civilians are welcome additions to my WWI greyscale project.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the plight of the refugee has existed as long as war itself. The terror of impeding violence, the disruption of livelihood, the dissolution of security and the mortal risk to loved ones - these are all things that are clearly seen on the face of every refugee no matter their religion, colour, nationality or time in history.

The German destruction of the Belgian city of Louvain in August of 1914 is noted for contributing to the world's condemnation of the Central Powers' cause and pursuit of war. For five consecutive days the city was indiscriminately burnt and looted. Its famous library, housing one of the largest and most impressive collection of ancient manuscripts, was burnt and destroyed, as was Louvain's university. The church of St. Pierre was also badly damaged by fire. The citizenry of Louvain were subject to rape, robbery and beatings, but the most tragic was the mass shootings of hundreds of innocents regardless of age or gender. As Sir Edward Grey solemnly remarked upon the outbreak of  hostilities that summer, 'The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time.'

So in these images I have tried to compose a plausible scene that would occur during those first few weeks of 1914. Seen here is a column of Belgian refugees fleeing the German advance while their hastily raised countrymen march to the front to attempt to stem the tide. 

The civilian figures are mostly new castings from Brigade Models' excellent range of Great War Belgians. The old couple with the wheelbarrow and dog are from Kawe's Westfalia Miniatures (meant for the Napoleonic period, but I find that they work quite well 100 years later). The cobblestones are hand painted, both on the figures' bases and the nylon roadway (being too cheap and lazy to get proper cobbled bases/roads). The others are older models from my collection, mostly Great War Miniatures, Brigade Models and the Minerva armoured car is (I believe) from 1st Corps. The buildings are from Kobblestone Miniatures.

Gripes about its format/rules aside, the LPL has become a much anticipated event in my hobby calendar. With it falling just after the hustle and bustle of the Challenge, I find it's a great way to get some of my own stuff done while enjoying what other participants come up with during each week's match-up.

Next up: Paris (really, I promise)!

On Vacation: The Campaign Drives on to Madrid

Bronze of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza at the Plaza de Espana in Madrid.

After our great stay in Holland we travelled to Madrid to meet up with some friends from Canada, take in the sights, imbibe to excess and enjoy the warm, sunny weather.

One afternoon I met up with Alf Comps, owner/designer of Barrage Miniatures who is making waves with his excellent terrain mats and very fine resin scenery (see MiniMike's review of his mat here). 

A mat in process of creation.

28mm Vietnamese raised hut - wonderful...

Alf is a real renaissance man, vastly talented, embarrassingly generous and incredibly enthusiastic about the hobby. We went out for a wonderful lunch and then he took me to his workshop space to let me see what he was working on. It was incredible. I won't go into detail on all the projects he has in development, but all of them are fantastic and real labours of love. Keep an eye out for Barrage miniatures as I think there will be many interesting products emerging from Alf's fevered mind.

A few days later I had a fabulous visit over tapas and beer with Benito, the creator of Gaming with TooFatLardies. 

Benito gets the Sophia Loren vaseline-on-the-lens treatment. 

Whereas Benito proves to be the far better photographer (I blame it on the beer...).

We had a great time chatting about many aspects of the hobby, our passions and peccadilloes and how blogging has really brought the community together. A wonderful evening - thank you Benito!

Finally, I made the pilgrimage to an excellent hobby shop in central Madrid called 'Atlantica Juegos' (thank you for the tip Mike!). I was pretty gobsmacked when I walked through the doors as the store seemed to have almost everything a historical wargamer could possibly want (Perry, Empress, Artizan, Warlord, Dixon, Minarions, Capitan, 4Ground and the list goes on). It also had an impressive Fantasy and Sci-Fi section, but I didn't examine the stock as closely as the historical offerings. Of course I didn't get away unscathed, picking up a variety of treats that I couldn't easily source back in Canada (more on that later).

Outside of 'Atlantica' with my loot.

Next up: We conclude our European campaign with an assault on Paris.

My 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th Entries to the Lead Painter's League

Viet Minh marching to Dien Bien Phu, 1954

So, a few folks have been asking me what's been going on with my participation in the Lead Painters' League (LPL). Well, as a recap, the League has been clipping along over the past ten weeks, with each week having the 40 entrants paired against one another for one-on-one matches. Points are won for a variety of things such as points for win/loss, point-spread within a match, submitting figures towards a stated theme, newly painted figures, etc. 

I've had a great time painting everything from goblins to panzergrenadiers but I soon realized that since our vacation landed right in the midst of the League I'd not have the time to submit new work for every round, so I've had to resort to 'retreading' some of my recent efforts.  So my apologies if this post seems a bit redundant in some spots but I thought I should try to wrap up what I'd started.

For the 6th round I drew upon my winter-themed French and Russians that I'd done for this year's Painting Challenge. Again, I really can't rave about these Perry figures enough - they're simply superb models.

For my 7th entry I sent in this group of 28mm Viet Minh from Red Star Miniatures which are excellent sculpts by Paul Hicks. I had read in Bernard Fall's 'Street Without Joy' that the French forces in Indochina greatly admired the Viet Minh expertise in camouflage, so I decided to tart up a couple of the models with some leaf camo on their helmets which I had snipped from the tips of aquarium plants.

For the 8th round I submitted a group of post-apocalyptic Soviet die-'ards that, again, I had done for the Challenge. These are very characterful Lead Adventure sculpts by the very talented 'Ratnik'.

My 9th entry was an homage to Alan Furst's excellent series of WWII noir-espionage novels. I know, it's kinda a lame entry but I do like these models from Mark Copplestone - they're such a blast to paint.

So there you have it, we're pretty much caught up on my entries for the LPL. There's just one more round to go and I'll post up that final entry next week when the League concludes. Thanks for visiting!

On Vacation: The Incursion into Holland

Our recent stay in Delft, Holland was superb. The picturesque canal town provided the perfect setting for a bit of R&R from our highly stressed visit of the UK.  ;-P

One of the whimsical canals of Delft.

During our time in Holland we managed to fit in a visit with the storied members of the 'Royal Dutch Waterbicycle Detachment' (aka: Mike (MiniMike), Rob and Jacco). They treated us to a fantastic meal at a wonderful restaurant set along the North Sea beach in Noordwijk (The Witsand Strandclub) where we ate, drank and thoroughly enjoyed eachothers' company.

Mike (with charming elfin smile) and the radiant Lady Sarah at the 'Witsand' restaurant.

A few days later Mike, Rob and Jacco invited me for a game of 'Chain of Command' in Mike's wonderful gaming room. The scenario was set in Normandy 1944 with American paratroopers pitted against a pincer attack consisting of German Heer troops and Fallshirmjager.

The game was fabulous and certainly looked the same. It featured Mike's new terrain matt from Barrage Miniatures which was absolutely gorgeous to play on. The excellent terrain along with the wonderfully painted miniatures (contributed from all three of the guys) really was a feast for the eyes.

Me admiring the wonderful terrain.

Rob and I played the Germans while Jacco and Mike controlled the American paratroopers. I won't get into too much detail here as I think Mike is going to provide a batrep on his blog in the coming days. But as a thumbnail sketch, the game opened with Jacco's Yank paratroopers pinning down my first section of Fallshirmjager who were hunkered in a house on the village outskirts. Nonetheless, I managed to get my artillery observer into a decent position where he could call in some directed mortar fire on the American positions near the center of the position. 

My Fallshirmjagers stepping off from their jump off points (sneaky artillery observer at the top room)

The barrage pinned many of the Americans down and the diversion allowed me to slowly infiltrate deeper into the village under covering fire. On the other side of town Rob had a really terrible bout of luck when he was caught in the open when Mike managed a series of interlinked ambush manoeuvres. Even when Rob tried to 'grab the enemy by the belt' with a close assault the dice didn't come through and his troops suffered heavy casualties.

Resistance is Futile: Rob (left) still not realizing that the the Fates had him in their crosshairs...

A paratrooper in the hedge is worth two... how does that go again? Rob's German infantry (lower left) getting lit up by American paratroopers in the hedgerows.

After about 30 minutes of gameplay all what was left of Rob's force was smoking boots and a bemused panzer Mark IV going in reverse off the board. As can be well imagined, Mike was exultant and rubbed his hands in glee, anticipating the future propaganda, er, balanced report (yes, that's it) that would emerge from his blog sometime during the coming weeks. I really felt Rob's pain.

While I was making slow progress with my attack I feared that I would have a pretty hard go of it facing both elite American platoons. So we called the game there and sat back with a few bottles of plonk to chat about the hobby and made plans for a future get together.

Me along with the core members of the Detachment.

It was a wonderful day out and I really can't thank Mike, Rob and Jacco enough for their fabulous hospitality along with a great afternoon of gaming. Again, thanks so much guys! I hope we can do it again soon.

Next up: Continuing on our travels to Spain and my meet-up with some great hobbyists from the Madrid area! Also, I'll give an update on my recent submissions to the Lead Painters' League.