Evora's Terrible Fate:

Former Naval officer, Major-General Francisco de Paula Leite, commanded some 3000 so-called regular troops against General of Division Jean-Baptiste-Maurice Loison and his 7000 men sent to take Evora. 29 July marks the 200th anniversary of this 'red day' in the continuing saga of the French invasion of Portugal.

While the French may not have been the first or even second battalions of their regiments, they were all better trained, led and equipped than their Portugese opponents. After the battle, which the French reported losing 100 KIA and 200 wounded; while the Portugese/Spanish losses were 2000 to 4000 (KIA, wounded and prisoners - the exact numbers will never be known), the French sacked the town of Evora. Loison had before sanctioned cruelty to cow the people by sheer terror. Soon all of Portugal knew of Evora's terrible fate.

In Portugal to this day Loison, nicknamed 'Maneta', has his named cursed.

Day 5 DONE!

140 miniatures in 5 days!

I also managed to get the grass cut and the weather held out for the garden wars game!


Alex and I did a full afternoon recreation of Quatre Bras (well sort-of).

I shall have to post the pictures from the battle later, but the troops are presented for your enjoyment now.

Day 4 Done!


WOW what a great progress done today in such a short time!


The family needs lasted till mid-morning and I noted that the light rain would be continuing all day and likely into tomorrow. Meaning that the garden game is likely off...sigh. However this meant that as long as I could stay focussed I might be able to achieve the entire day's plans.

Focus lasted till lunchtime, when again family duties prevailed. In that time all highlight layers were done and all muskets were finished. All that was left was the immense ammounts of white everywhere, metallics and touch-ups.

Sadly from the perspective of the project my boys needed more face time in the afternoon. Then, friends came over...their friends! The two older ones took off for most of the afternoon and the youngest was content with coloring books and video playing in my office.

BLAZING brushworks resumed!

All needed works got done in time for dinner and all that remained was the touch-ups in the evening.

After boys to bed these got done.


Fourty minutes ago I finished the painting, then got into the seal-coating and final 'weathering' that I get in one step with Polyshades.

Now I need to wait for the gloss coat to set overnight, flocking in the morning and battlefield set-up by noon. Within 12 hours I will be gaming with minis that were bare metal only 5 days before!

Day 3 Done!


Once again I managed to remember to take a picture before blasting off into the progress for the day.

After taking care of the family in the morning, I was seized by the burning need to finish off the majority of the progress today!

Day 2 done


Okay so the photo did not get posted until today.

The Inks got done yesterday am, then went into face details and the pants.

Next will be the second/third layers on the rest of the clothing.

This evening will be belts and starting on details of muskets and packs.

IF all goes well then I will have only the highlights and touch-ups to do Saturday and by the afternoon I plan to get the gloss coating on.

That way on sunday morning I can flock them all...while the flocking dries I can set up the play area and have the fresh 'recruits' join the battle planned for that day!

Day one done.


All basic colours and flesh are done.

Provided I do not get taken away by a fast moving work file tomorrow I should have all major colours done and flesh inked and be ready for details on Friday.

WAVE 2 Redcoats are mounted to sticks...wave 1 are all flocked.

Here we go on the 140 minis in one week challenge!

First Wave done...time for a challenge

I have completed the 140 minis, tonight they are curing the PolyShades seal coating.

Now I have only a month to go to finish the British Forces for my planned Vimeiro game in August.

The current challenge is to put a major dent in the needed painting.

I plan to paint another 130 foot troops, including gunners and staff officers, also a British General figure that I have which will serve as Wellesley for this game (I have a nicer one of him in the famous blue civil coat but I want to 'lavish' some time on this mini similar to the Napoleon and staff that I did a few years ago). These forces are planned to be painted in the next 5 days.

I am hoping to put them into use during the garden game planned for July 27, whether they make it into the game or not the effort to get this many done will go a long way to having enough forces for the really big game in August!

Kilt Rush:

Few things beat the sensation when you realize that the last stripes to be crossed on the regiment of highlander kilts is just under your brush.

Whew! What a busy painting day...140 minis are one day from completion!

Garden War Rules:

A question was put about what rules I was planning for the coming garden battle.

My first thought was to press on with a new set that I have called Le Feu Sacre, while I have not yet fully read these rules and have not tested them on the tabletop...they do have some merits.

In the meantime I have reviewed my time available for playtest and understanding of the new rules, let alone being ready to run such a game in the yard.

What I realized was I needed a game that was mostly known to many players locally and could be run with simple supports. I would like that to be Napoleon's Battles, but I know that the system is just to 'busy' with modifiers and math for many of the players.

In the end I think I will go with SHAKO (version 0 or 1 whichever you fancy), but I will be running the game at DOUBLE SCALE. This way there should be more room between the forces when they start to get into action, and when we play we can get a little closer to the correct scale for the minis. I shall try a playtest (possibly solo since there is a convention meeting the same day) on July 27, 2008. Expect more information after then...

Until then I shall have to press on harder in seeking time to PAINT!!!

Another Garden Force:


In a test to see what my road and river materials looked like in pictures, I decided to set them out and lay out a few troops to compare.




Tell me what you think?


The road and river material is a non-slip matting meant for kitchen drawers etc.

Still seeing RED...


Loads more done on the British Forces for Vimeiro, now looking like it might be played out 'in' my back yard!

I still may do a segment using the tabletop and have it all ready on standby in case the weather is not good for the backyard game.

Today, the 6th of July also marks a dark moment during the middle phase of the French Imperial occupation of Portugal. A town of some 5000 people was taken and sacked by the French. They later retreated to Lisbon, as holding any of the outer provinces during the ongoing uprisings was not possible for the long term.

While this image by Goya is to represent the actions of the May 3 start of the uprisings, the actions and intent of the French may not have been much different on July 6, 1808. Enforcement of the 'Continental System' was essentially impossible and many had to pay the ultimate price before the situation was ultimately resolved.

Still greater and more lovely sunsets were to come for Leiria, like this one...