Work in Progress Wednesday

Welcome to another Work in Progress Wednesday, we start this week with Mark J and some more WW2 miniature progress. Mark has started painting some german armour, he’s acquired his first airbrush and these vehicles are perfect for a try out.

He has also made some more progress on his Volksgrenadiers.

Next up and Chris St has been painting up the fairly new Stargrave Automaton miniatures. I was tempted by these myself, but now have too many space skeletons to paint.

Moving on and Phil has managed to finish his Watcher in the water miniature. This is the beast its self.

And some additional tentacles to cause the Fellowship a few problems.

Stephen has been busy scratch building a castle, this one is in 15mm scale and based on 13th century rotunda style castles.

And not to be left out Tony F has also been making some castles. These are 2mm scale keeps and towers from Brigade Models.

And with that we will leave you until this time next week.

Work in Progress Wednesday

Here we are again for another Work in Progress Wednesday.

We start with Phil who has finished painting his WW1 artillery piece for his Quar army. He has also made a start on some tentacles for the Watcher in the Water.

And sticking with the Lord of the Rings theme some Wargs are on the way.

Mark J has started on some more WW2 German armour. He got an airbrush for Christmas that he will be trying out on these.

He has also continued work on his Volksgrenadiers.

And lastly for this week we have some more Vietnam vehicles from Stephen in the form of these M113’s

And a piece of packaging has inspired him to create another piece of sci-fi terrain.

And with that we will see you next Wednesday.

A new beginning…

Maidstone Wargames Society held their first meeting of the year on Saturday. This meeting includes our AGM so often has a good turnout.

Around 24 members were in attendance for the meeting. The AGM was, as usual, short, only around 30 minutes. Also, as usual, the existing committee was re-elected without opposition. Despite the chairman’s pleas to be released!

There was also a very good turnout of games, covering a variety of scales, periods of genres, here’s a short photo round up.

John L brought out his 1:1200 Baltic Galleys for some Naval action.

Another naval game, but a few centuries later and under the water rather than on it, Peter M staged a 1:100th Stingray game, “Anything can happen in the next half hour“.

Paul and Colin brought out some 3mm Ancients for some FoG games.

Tony G and Stephen both fielded Anglo-Saxon warbands for some 28mm SAGA games.

Some more recent conflict now, some late WW2 Chain of Command action staged by chairman Mark J with 28mm vehicles and figures.

And last, but by no means least, Tony F and Phil staged a battle from the Lord of the Rings, again in 28mm.

That’s it for the round up of the first meeting of the year.

MWS meet on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of the month (except the 4th Saturday in December) from 10:00 to 17:00 at Linton Village Hall, south of Maidstone on the A299.

Information about the Society, including directions, can be found here.

The diary of planned games can be found here, this is updated throughout the year so please have a look from time to time.

 

Work in Progress Wednesday

Happy new year and welcome to our first Work in Progress Wednesday post of 2026. We have a bumper crop of things to show this week!

We start with a contribution from our newest member Chris St, with an impressive looking French unit for the WSS.

Next up we have an M48 from Stephen, we have a game coming up in later in January and I suspect this will be making an appearance.

Phil has been putting together an artillery piece for his Quar army, he has used a suitably looking WW1 gun for this. We are hoping to get our first game using the Quar at the society this year.

He has also finished off flocking this always useful rocky ground terrain piece.

Moving on and Tony F has been working on something outside his normal interests with these John Carter of Mars themed miniatures. These he is getting ready for our 2026 show game.

And some more beasties for the same game.

And we will leave you this week with some miniatures I painted that were also outside of what I normally paint. I painted two scenes as christmas presents using the range of fairy tale cloth miniatures from Statuesque Miniatures.

For this one I used the old lady in the woods with some singing rats.

And a scene with some cloth dolls and a cat. The mushrooms were just small craft wooden ones.

And with that we will see you next week.

Work in Progress Wednesday

Welcome to the last Work in Progress post of 2025. We are taking a short break and will be back with our 2026 projects in January.

For this week we start with a project of mine, I’m building a Robot army. I have robot miniatures from lots of different sources so decided to paint them all the same so they blend in. Here we have an old EM4 robot, an AT-43 Therian (looks a bit like a robot) and a 3D printed skeletal robot.

Next up and Mark H has been painting some Yak9P 1950 vintage North Korean fighters.

Moving on and taking a break from orcs, orcs and more orcs, Phil has painted some 3D printed alien terrain pieces. These are more biotech style pieces.

Tony F has also been busy working on some sci-fi terrain of his own. We start with some plastic kit market stalls.

He has painted up some stacks of crates useful for hiding behind in a fire fight.

And having discovered a box full of resin terrain pieces in the loft, felt it was about time they were painted.

And we will end this year with something wonderfully random fromStephen, who presented these fungus themed bases. I’ve no idea what they are for but I like them.

Have a well earned break over the festive period. The work in progress posts will return on the 7th January 2026!

Work in Progress Wednesday

It’s the penultimate Work in Progress Wednesday for 2026. We start this week with Phil and what he informs me is a Coftyran Chyweethl tractor from the Quar miniatures range.

Phil has also been painting some strange alien scenery, apparently this is a storage container?

Meanwhile Tony F has been using a silicone mould designed for making food items like chocolate or icing treats. He has poured resin in instead.

The result being various bush/plant pieces to use as scater terrain.

Tony has also be working on some Fauna in the form of these dangerous lookning hounds.

To be festive I decided to repaint my scratch built Maggot beast, wanted something a little more realistic colourwise.

And last for this week we have Marcus who has apparently found a Woola. He knows what that means, the picture provided was this beastie!

And with that we will see you next week for our last Work in Progress Wednesday post for 2025.

Stout Hearts, The British and Canadians in Normandy 1944 – Book Review

Stout Hearts, The British and Canadians in Normandy 1944 by Ben Kite.

Review by Mark J

I have been a lover of books for as long as I can remember and very much love the fact that books really help me play better games on the tabletop. The research part of our hobby is one of my favourite parts. Learning about a battle, campaign and the men and women that fought brings the historical game narrative to the tabletop.

I’m always on the lookout for a good book that helps me create and run better games. Ben Kite’s Stout Hearts fits the bill perfectly. Easy to read, covering British and Canadian armed forces that fought to liberate France in 44. I’ve used this book to create an Op Bluecoat game at the club next year. Here’s my take on the book.

Stout Hearts is an impressive, deeply researched analysis of British and Canadian operations in Normandy, offering a refreshing counterbalance to long-standing myths about Allied performance. Ben Kite blends operational history with tactical detail, drawing heavily on primary sources to show how units fought on the ground. His writing is clear, measured, and avoids the polemics that so frustratingly often colour Normandy historiography.

Kite’s great strength is his ability to contextualise British and Canadian actions—explaining doctrine, logistics, training, and the battlefield environment—to illustrate why commanders made the choices they did. The book challenges the idea that the British and Canadians were slow or lacking aggression, showing instead a professional and adaptive army grappling with a formidable German defence and extremely difficult terrain.

While occasionally dense due to its technical depth, Stout Hearts is accessible and is packed with valuable insight for wargamers, military historians, and anyone interested in the Normandy campaign. One of the most balanced and authoritative studies of Allied performance in 1944 I’ve read in a long time.

If you want to view the book on Amazon you can find it here. The club earns a small referral if you purchase it which we put towards our website fees.

Work in Progress Wednesday

Only three more before Wednesdays before the Christmas holiday. But progress is not letting up.

Phil certainly isn’t with yet more 10mm orcs for a massive lord of the Rings game at some point in the future.

Speaking of which I’ve had a test paint of some 10mm Lord of the Rings Easterlings.

Next up and Stephen has decided to create some alien looking terrain using just hot glue and a blue paint scheme.

Back to reality and Mark J has gone back to his 28mm WW2 forces and continued painting up the last of his Volksgrenadier platoon in winter uniform.

Moving on and Tony F has painted up a couple of 3D printed beasties, which now makes me regret signing up to the next Stargrave game.

Tony has also applied a Chris Foss inspired paint scheme to his curtain thing topped (don’t ask) tesla tower.

And with that we will see you next week.

Work in Progress Wednesday

It’s Wednesday and that means progress! We start this week with some 3D printed construction style robots from Tony F. He has also been scratchbuilding some other sci-fi pieces with a few 3D printed gubbings thrown in for good measure.

Moving on and I think Mark J has finally finished painting his 10mm French and German early WW2 forces.

And the French forces, apparently these are both ready for a game of the ‘O’ Group rules from Two Fat Lardies.

Next we have Stephen who has started on a Quar tankette, he has swapped the crew member to the faction he is collecting. I won’t pretend to know the factions but I’m thinking of collecting Quar myself.

Moving on we have Phil who has continued with his 10mm Lords of the Rings orc army with some more trolls.

And lastly for this week I’ve made some scale agnostic volcanic craters. I actually made them out of a type of plastic that you can mould when warm and sets rock hard when cold. The lava was created with some orange translucent hot glue.

And so we will see you next Wednesday.

Work in Progress Wednesday

We start this work in progress Wednesday with some Slaine fantasy from Eric. First Slaine himself mid spasm change! Followed by some other celtic warriors and a roman.

Taking to the air and Mark H has been working on some US Navy Skyraiders and North Korean Yak9P’s from Tumbling Dice. He has also started on some bridges that will no doubt be targets of a future game.

Stephen has fiished his warlord made from a couple of diferent miniatures spliced together.

And he has put the finishing touches to his oasis.

Now we have Tony F and some rather impressive Cacti, these were desk ornaments found in Ikea. In front of them are some cyber dogs.

And lastly this week, I’ve painted up a couple more mechs, this time a Blood Asp and Warhawk.

And with that we will see you next week.