Silver birch

Scratch built silver birch tree.

Swashbucklers, rogues and desperados

28mm Swashbucklers, rogues and desperados from Blue Moon.

Scratch built tree

I'm trying to work on better terrain than I have been gaming with in the past and the latest project is trees. When I was at York this past weekend, I bought a large tree kit from http://www.treemendus-scenics.co.uk/. Before attempting this, I decided to have a go with a similar method with things I already had in the house. I began with making a basic construction made from the inner part of basic flex which you can find about the house. No, I didn't rob it from a light fitting, it was spare. Don't know what you people take me for...
The wires were twisted to form the trunk then this was split up to start making larger branches. These were then spli to form smaller branches etc. After that I coated the structure in kitchen towel with pva glue. I like the way this method comes out but it is very time consuming and future builds will use a painted on material instead. After that, the structure pas painted and sea foam was applied to the branches with pva. I think future builds will be with rubberised horse hair. Flock was then applied using non scented hair spray followed by another spray to fix it. The final step was to finish the base with paint and sand with a dry brush and flock applied.
I'm very pleased with this first effort and can't wait to get out with a camera for reference to build some more.

Rodney and the breaking of the line

I can't say too much about this book by Peter Trew, I loved it and it is probably the best book I have read in a long time. If you're into the mid eighteenth century, this book is packed with a lot of the big names from Cornwallis, Byng, Hood, Bougainville and, of course, Rodney himself. We follow Rodney from his early career, through political success and failure as well as those in his naval career. Much of the content focuses on the fight against the French in the Caribbean and also the catastrophic events off the coast of Yorktown under the command of Rodney's subordinates. What would have happened if Rodney was there instead of being unwell on his way back to England?
After the event, he returns to the Caribbean to finally deal with the French at the battle of the Saintes, where he 'breaks the line'. The account of this in the book is absolutely riveting.
Bad decisions and political enemies finally result in Rodney finishing life in obscurity and relative poverty like so many other larger than life historical characters.