Work trips...'Lock-outs'...painting Italeri English Knights...'To The Strongest' homemade battle mat...

So I've been away from home for well over a month for work. Now that I've been back a week, I cracked on a bit and achieved a few hobby related goals. I'm still on my Medieval kick.

It was never my intention to write and maintain a weekly blog, but I consider it more of a diary to keep me motivated, track my painting progress, and write a few game reports as well.

Well...I did work on these foot Knights before I left Darwin in late September. They are part of the two boxes of Italeri '100 Years War English Archers and Knights' that I purchased a few months ago. I really wanted to flesh out my collection of 1/72 figures for this period and provide an opposing force for my Zvezda French.

I've finished fourteen Foot Knights from the two boxes. With only limited poses available in the boxes I've had to mix and match a few colours to provide a spot of variety amongst them. Whilst the poses are limited, the quality of the sculpts are beautiful, and the scale is comparable to the Zvezda French...

I've finished 4 of the Mounted English Knights, but still have another dozen to go. These Italeri Riders & Mounts are much more detailed than the Miniart Cav that I completed earlier in the year, and to be honest, my painting skills don't quite do the figures justice. There's a lot of fine detail on the coloured blankets that adorn the horses...and...I'm sure I'm not following 'historical accuracy' when it comes to the colours I've chosen. 

The Italeri and Zvezda troops are more of a 24mm - 25mm size...on the upper end of 1/72, whereas my Airfix 'Sheriff of Nottingham' figures are on the smaller side of 1/72. Nevertheless, once they're all mixed and matched I'm not too fussed. The horses are noticeably smaller...more like donkeys compared to the muscular horses on my Italeri & Miniart calvary figures.

Before I left I pulled the trigger and purchased an online copy of 'To The Strongest' from War-game Vault.

I've spent some time reading the rules, watching a few online play throughs...reading the player forum...rereading the rules. Last weekend I went out to Spotlight and purchased a roll of felt and made this homemade battle mat.

I had lined up a 4 player game this weekend, but as I write this there has been a COVID case in the Darwin/Katherine area, and as such we are in a 'lock-out'. The club is closed tomorrow. A shame really because I was really looking forward to giving 'To The Strongest' a red hot go.

It's probably not as large as I would like - once I had trimmed it, the mat is just shy of 5ft long by 3ft deep - but I had to get the attendant to cut it in the store, and to be honest it was an impulse purchase, as we were actually at Spotlight to buy Halloween craft items for my kids.

In order to fit a 12 x 8 grid on the felt cloth, I marked out 12 cm by 11. 5 cm squares with a brown Sharpie pen. I also used a bit of left over 'Terrain brown' primer paint, along with a squirt of Tamiya Olive and Vallejo green yellow to break up the green felt material. A quick squirt of watered down PVA...then a sprinkle of some Army painter 'Battlefield Field Grass'...followed by another mist of PVA.

The felt cost me about 14 bucks...I borrowed the brown sharpie from my daughter....The static grass cost about 12 bucks...

It's not as flash as a 'proper' battlemat, but those mats are just hideously expensive I find...well over $150 before you add postage.