Every year at the local Bring-and-Buy down at the Woolston Club, I find something of interest. More, indeed, than I spend, but I find I am becoming accustomed to resisting some kinds of temptation. Last year, I spent just twenty-eight dollars, for which I came away with some Napoleonic French Horse grenadiers which were to become my representative unit for my Imperial Guard Heavy Cavalry; and eight palm trees suitable for my Army Men project.  That was enough to satisfy me then.

This year I spent more, on a wide range of ... topics, shall we say?  In no particular order overall, we'll begin with these three items for my Army Men project.  The 'Lone Star' armoured car (obviously based on the WW2 'Humber' models) was a find.  Had there been more of those, I certainly would have snapped them up. The 'Lone star' bren carrier I bought specifically as a tractor for the Britains field piece.  These were a bit pricy at $10 the time, which is one of the reasons why I didn't buy more of the 'carriers' at least.  I certainly gave a bit of thought to that!

I think it was from here, too,  that I picked up my third Leopard tank for the Nabob of Tchagai.  The model was OK, but the tracks needed repairs and straightening, and one of the road wheels was threatening to go its own way.  Repairs completed. Fifteen dollars - and a wee bit of time later - spent at this table.

The next fascinating item I have long felt was a serious deficiency in available plastic kits if you wanted to do the Western desert: the British 2pr anti-tank gun.  It took the Russians to come up with one, and a superb piece it is.  I've made it up here as an Art of Tactic game piece, but as I haven't glued it to the base, I can as easily detach it for other games.  That the thing pretty much fits together without glue, I find very impressive. Actually I did glue a couple of small bits, as being too fiddly otherwise for my clumsy fingers. I don't have a copy of the Art of Tactic, and would be interested to hear news and readers' opinions of that game system.

The wheels I shoved onto the spare trail.  I get the impression that as one need not for the most part use glue in assembling the model, you could uplift the gun from its deployed carriage, and place it upon this one for the gun in travel mode.  Wouldn't it be great if Zvezda (or someone else for that matter) produced a CMP or Bedford portee for the thing?

Impulse buy here, seeing this bunch of tropical ferns (?) going for $4 I think.  I've based them on more stable circular wooden bases I had spare, and re-glued some of the pieces that had come adrift.  I good deal of the stems and foliage was grey rather than green.  These I painted the upper surfaces and some of the undersides a brightish green a slightly darker shade than the already green ones, which (of course) I left.  Then over all I applied a very watery black acrylic wash.  The result is what you see here.  With the heaps of aquarium plastic greenery mosses and what have you, I reckon I can create a suitably wild, scrubby jungle, swamp or thick brushwood terrain...

Coming last in this article, but the first thing to catch my eye were these two interesting items. Always on the lookout for anything that can fulfil the role of logistics elements for my Napoleonic Big Battles project, I just had to snap these chappies up.  The long caisson could be French or possibly Russian; and the grey limber and ammo chest and gunners' carriage look to be Prussian. When a item leaps up, grabs you by the throat and says "Buy me!" - well, you gotta do what a man's gotta do, eh?  Altogether, a very satisfactory day's haul, having spent just over 70 bucks, even if several of the items required a little bit of work.  

The final items aren't from the B-and-B at all, but from Paul, a.k.a. 'Jacko' of the 'paintinglittlesoldiers' blog spot.   Having several Napoleonic cannon surplus to requirements, and knowing I was thinking of acquiring more, he left seven with me before giving me a lift to the Club. Thanks, Jacko, for a great day out!