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Monday, June 27, 2016

Great War GURKHAS!?


Okay... A little distraction… at least it’s the same conflict!

In the last week or so three big orders from Wargames Foundry, Gripping Beast/Woodbine Design, and 1st Corps (along with smaller ones from North Star/Great War Miniatures, Brigade Games - thanks Jon! – and Warlord Games) arrived. If only I had known how the Brexit vote was going to go and that the pound was going to tank… I could have saved a couple hundred dollars… ah well… I may just order that one last brigade I need sooner rather than later!

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):



Gripping Beast/Woodbine Design was the first of those orders to arrive so I got to work on them first. I did order a few things that weren’t directly related to the Vimy Project – like these Gurkhas with Kukri knives and some Turk and Australian casualties and some shepards and a warlord to go with my other Medieval Muslims.

The Canadians are taking a bit longer as they actually required assembly. The Gripping Beast/Woodbine Design British come with separate heads and can be ordered with one of 17 different head options!? I mostly went with plain old Brodie helments, but I got a few packs with SD caps, bareheads, bandaged heads and gas hoods to throw into the mix. The first battalion of the brigade is assembled and being painted – they will the 22nd Battalion, CEF (the vingt deuxiéme).

This past Saturday the copy of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I requested throught he local public library finally showed up, so we’ve had a lot of TV watching to do this week. (we get DVDs for a week, being a new one, it won’t be renewable!) I think we’re about half way thorugh – luckily Friday is CANADA DAY and Amanda will have the day off, so hopefully we’ll get the series finished up then. I’ve been getting a lot of work done while watching the program – prepping, priming, basing and such. Hopefully by the end of the week I’ll have three brigades worth of miniatures all prepped, primed based and gooped and ready for painting (and maybe even have the 22iéme done as well!)

In addition to all the miniatures I've ordered, in the last month I've also tracked down a few rule sets The Great War(hammer), Through the Mud and the Blood, and I even broke down and picked up a copy of the 3rd Edition of Contemptible Little Armies. I like some of the ideas in Through the Mud and the Blood, but I just don't think it will work on the scale I'm dealing with. The rules I previously used were a modified version of the 2nd edition CLA rules.  I'll probably stick to the same for the Vimy Project, but I thought it might be worth checking out some others as well - even if just to steal ideas for further tweaks to the rules I'm using. I think I might also pick up If the Lord Spares Us


Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

22iéme Battalion, CEF – hopefully!  

10 comments:

  1. Nice gurkhas, it's not a big slip, still more ww1 than beavers, yeah you should have waited ,but who knew?
    Best Iain

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    1. Thanks!

      To be honest I'd actually heard nothing about it until the referendum was over and then the next morning my facebook feed was all BREXIT! BREXIT! BREXIT! BREXIT! BREXIT! BREXIT!!! and I was all "WTF is 'BREXIT'"!? (didn't take long to figure out...)

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  2. They look very nice, well done...love their hat!

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  3. Don't worry, for reasons beyond my limited global fiscal understanding, the Looney is following the pound down so you did lose as many potential savings as might have been. Of course that means any US purchases should have been done last week.

    Ghurkas, Im trying to remember if there were any involved in tbe Dubster force thing in the Caucasus in 1918, along with the Canadians who were brought in to train Kurds to fight islamic extremists.

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    1. I've noticed. People have been telling me the pound lost 25% of it's value and is "at the lowest it's been since the 80s" and I keep looking at the Bank of Canada exchange rates and it's dropped from 1.89CAD to 1.72CAD (which is a drop, and would have saved me a significant amount - I spent a LOT of money on minis in the last month!), but I can recall times within the last few years I was buying toys when the exchange rate was much, much lower than it is now (1.43CAD at one point - If I remember correctly!). So I'm guessing all this talk is relative to the USD...?

      Still, keeping an eye on those exchange rates and hoping I might pick up a few more things!

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    1. I do recall reading something about Dunsterforce somewhere - a few years back when I was working on "Back of Beyond" forces... I can't remember where...? I think it might have been a Wargames Illustrated article. I'll have to have a look!

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  5. Gurkas look terrific! I pulled the trigger on a couple of UK orders after the pound took a dive. Saved myself a little bit of dough.

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