Progress!

After many nights of cutting and scraping, filing and chopping... I managed to get the majority of my recent purchases to the next stage!

And I am reminded how even the simplest of tasks can turn out to be something you can easily muck up. Last night I got my tray full of models -

Filled the bathroom sink with warm soapy water, and got scrubbing with my sons old toothbrush.

The most important factor here, which cannot be emphasised often enough, is that you should make sure the plug is in whenever 15mm models are near the sink. Last night however, the issue turned out to be far more slippery.

I used my normal hand soap mixed in the water, and all was fine till tonight. Assembly began tonight and I immediately noticed something about the supposedly clean models. They were all covered in a white residue.

D'oh.

I left the models to drip dry and as a result the drying water has left soap residue on the figures. Easy to fix, but a silly mistake that cost me the one thing we modellers have least of - time.

The process of building models tonight also took time, mainly due to long moments of confusion. One of the packs of Sherman I's I picked up from Wayland Games contained two left hand track sponsons rather than a left and a right. I've fired an email off to FoW's customer service team, so hopefully this gets resolved soon.

Oh, and something I noticed about Wayland Games - on ordering the postage price is listed as a set amount. However, on paying the postage price is suddenly bumped up from £1.70 to £3 ('Airmail' apparently) and you cannot change it down. A rather nasty trick from these guys (alongside them listing items they do not have in stock, advanced orders they don't list as not being advanced and special 'free postage' deals that don't include certain items they don't mention in the deal).

Unfortunately, they seem to have the biggest range of FoW models thats easily obtainable in the UK.

Error number 2 that was spotted last night - the pack of 6 pdr guns I picked up to finish off my A/T platoon were the incorrect ones. I picked up the Airlanding guns (BR512) rather than the standard ones (BR511). The crews have ended up being mixed in with the Flames of Battle 40mm bofors crews to add some variety (review to follow on those). The guns will just be spare parts as I have now ordered the correct versions.

That's it for now, just continuing to try not to glue myself to anything and putting together what I have got. I have to say I LOVE the Sherman I's - but that might just be my emotional attachment speaking!