Toy Boat Conversions

I was in a mind to run age of sail era naval games, perhaps a mini-campaign involving pirates. One way or another (either on the Naval Wargaming or Super Cheap Wargaming FB group, I forgot which) I found this big load of Risk replacement toy ships just suitable for the task.

The package arrived from Amazon US in a good time and I started sorting the contents out. The ships have two tiers of gunports, so are suitable for third and fourth rates, but what I needed for specific scenarios were first/second rates, frigates, indiamen, and ships laid up in ordinary. 

Thus I took out my rotary tool, some glue and plasticard and started on some conversions. 

For the 1st rate ship, I put a 2mm plasticard spacer at the bottom and smoothed the gaps out with some epoxy resin. At this scale I did not care much about the lowest tier of gunports, I just painted on a third bright brown stripe.

The frigate had the bottom of the hull sanded up to the top of the second tier of gunports. I also added a spritsail to the mizzen.

For the indiaman I filled the bottom gunports and sanded the hull to shape.

The vessel in ordinary retained the original hull, but the masts were chopped off and replaced with a toothpick.

Each ship besides the last one received a plastic hairbrush bristle to place ensigns on.

Further down the line I'm thinking of adding clear plasticard bases, but for now they are good 'as is'. I'll paint some third rates in brighter colours next.

All Your Polish Cavalry Are Belong To Us

Here's all the (so far) planned and painted Polish cavalry for my 17th century big skirmish games.

A Town House for 'Dark Nights in Trashburgh'

After having the bare cardboard sitting on my windowsill for months, in the end I completed a scratchbuilt 28mm town house piece for my 'Dark Nights in Trashburgh' 17th century urban skirmish project. It is mostly made from cardboard, balsa wood, plasticard and texture paste for the walls.

The War of the League of Aspico, Episode 2 - King of Rome, Pope of the Hill

After their Nibeunese allies got beaten at the Battle of Piadda, there was pressure on Papal general Lodovico da Montelupo, to force decisive action. With peace looming, the League of Aspico needed a victory to bring to the bargaining table.

Opportunity presented itself when, encouraged by their Fransican allies' easy victory, the Republic of Fradice launched an attak on the Lomagna, without any clear strategic intention other than the good old 'pillage what you can, burn what you can't' method.

The two armies met at Monte Piombo on the common border. Montelupo was wise enough to send a scouting force of two gendarme units and occupy the ruling height. Otherwise, the deployment of the two armies mirrored each other: both had three gendarme, two pike block and one arquebusier unit.

Alfred Von Richthausen's Rote Reitter

As promised in my last post, I checked my new phone camera and it does a-okay. So I took the opportunity of fair weather today, and reinforced with camera flash, took photos of my freshly completed Warlord Cuirassiers.

Although I'm Hungarian and it's sort of against traditions, I like the concept of heavy cavalry in all of its forms. After attending a presentation on the subject before Christmas, I promptly got this box on my wish list. The Mrs and Santa coordinating their efforts, the dozen reiters were under the tree by the right time.

When I started painting the figures I had no clear concept in mind other than having one half with swords and one with pistols done. In good 'Cossacks: Back to War' tradition (where by default one faction is red and one is blue) my Imperialist infantry has a red/orange theme, so I chose to go with that. The rest is history.

Painting Tally, February 2026

The previous month started well and I could make good progress on my painting projects. 

I did not have any clear goals, and most likely will not continue to have, other than paint what is on hand and start planning a house renovation.

Here's all what I did to date:

28mm

Completed

8x Foundry Hajduks

10x Warlord Firelocks as Sikler/Wallachian Green Rifles

12x Warlord ECW/TYW Cuirassiers

Primed

1x scratchbuilt town house with walled garden

Assembled

12x Fireforge Mongols (Crimean Tatar proxies for my Cossacks)

1/72

Painted (requires varnish and basing)

8x Strelets WSS cavalry

16x Strelets GNW Swedish Infantry

6mm

Completed

36x Napoleonic French GAC

36x Austrian Cuirassiers

192x Austrian Line Inf in helmet

This results in a monthly PU of 1220, continuing the theme of a more productive month following a less productive one.

Purchases

I bought a few plastic figures from Wargamer.pl, the aforementioned Mongols, and the famed Risk replacement plastic ship lot from Amazon. This latest item is due to arrive from far away Texas, USA towards the end of March.

As an anniversary gift from my wife I received the Strelets box of 'Court and Army of Peter I', more than a hundred figures of 1/72 goodness included.

I also have a new phone now and hopefully I'll be able to take better pictures, which should increase my blogging activity.

1/1200 Naval Additions

Continuing on the naval front, here's a sampler of 1/1200 scale vessels completed recently. The sailing ships in the background are Ark Royal casts, except for the 2nd rate to the front, which is a resin recast, made by yours truly, of the Ark Royal 80-gun Indiaman. It's not very pretty but suffices to balance my two fledgling fleets.

The larger galleys are of my earlier stash, the small ones are the refined thing which look more to scale. I upgraded the earlier two-mast large galleys to be capitanas or squadron flagships, and these new ones are considered to be galee sottili, that is, standard size galleys.

With this many ships completed, perhaps some gaming is also due. I am keen to try out some house modifications for Galleys & Galleons.

The 'Black Ship'

Recently I completed the Zvezda 1/350 scale version of the Spanish Armada flagship San Martín. I used scratchbuilt masts, sails and flags instead of the ones in the kit, and painted the hull using arcylics and an oil wash. The tones are deliberately muted to have that 'long service' look.

I'm not sure I'll ever play any games involving the actual first Spanish Armada, but this vessel would come in handy in other theaters, as she's big enough to represent any of the late 16th - early 17th century treasure fleet ships.

Painting Tally, January 2026

I have to say the year started well, on both the painting and the real life front. I managed to pass my second bar exam and also made some progress with diminishing The Heap.

Here's what I did this month:

28mm

Completed

14x Perry Swiss

12x Polish cavalry (Warlord plastic conversions)

8x homecast Cossack infantry

Primed

12x Warlord TYW Cuirassiers

30x Foundry Cossacks (and Polish Haiduks)

6mm

Primed

72x Napoleonic cavalry (Austrian cuirassiers and French GAC)

192x Napoleonic infantry (Austrian in helmet)

Other

Completed

11x scratchbuilt 1/1200 scale galleys

1x Zvezda 1/350 San Martín

Assembled

1x Lego Acclamator starship

This results in a total PU of 1115.

I purchased the aforementioned Foundry foot Cossacks, the Lego ship and a book on the armies of the Principality of Transsylvania.