Plant Cafe Exeter
Where’s it to?
The Plant Cafe sits facing Cathedral Green opposite the war memorial, so you can sit outside and enjoy watching activities on the green. The current version of this cafe is owned and run by the staff after they took it over form the previous management. I think the take over benefitted the customers!
What’s best?
Well, all the food is vegetarian and very good too! It may not be the cheapest cafe in Exeter but it has good fresh food that is well presented. Sitting outside is always pleasant although inside is cosy on a colder day.
It won’t surprise anyone who knows me to hear I think their best product is their cake! Particular favourites are their almond based cakes and their beetroot and raspberry cake. I can also recommend their cappuccino as a good smooth coffee served in a cup and saucer.
Beetroot and raspberry cake at the Plant Cafe
And the rest?
This cafe gets very busy so plan to get there early and be prepared to wait for a table. I only had bad service once from an impressively rude waitress but I had a courteous apology and a refund for the food that hadn’t been delivered so I’m still happy to recommend this cafe.
The Plant also supplies food to the Bikeshed Theatre in Exeter
Meet the Ghoulfriend
New figures on the block
Like most gamers who dabble with fantasy I am partial to the dark undead! I also rather like the GamesWorkshop version of Transylvania via Hammer Horror and Hieronymous Bosch. So I bought the new Vampire Counts book. And plenty of tempting new figures are showcased in the book.
Citadel Ghouls - complete unit
Being old enough to have started with Airfix ho/oo figures I have a soft spot for plastic figures. The only thing that puts me off the Zvezda range is I cannot remove the mould lines without accidentally whittling a piece of figure off! Figures made in hard plastic that I can clean up without unintentional surgery are a welcome change. Having a chance to buy a box of Ghouls from the new range at a good price I seized the opportunity.
Open the box!
You get enough pieces to make ten ghouls and one can be a leader figure. There are enough arms and heads to give plenty of variety. One point to make is because of the way the figures are animated it carefully plan how the finished unit will look. If you don’t they will not neatly assemble as a unit and we all know how vexing that is! Not that gamers are at all neurotic about this sort of thing …
Putting on the slap
Citadel Ghouls - head ghoul
The figures assemble easily and after a prime with GW white spray I painted them in subdued colours with a single subdued highlight. Having recently taken to using the new GW washes a coat of Devlan Mud grimed the figures up nicely. A quick touch up of colours here and there and it was job done.
The figures were finished with a heavy duty satin varnish followed by a matt spray after basing.
And there’s more
Citadel Ghouls - objective marker
With all the optional bits and pieces I put together a simple objective marker. This was made form the spares and set on a standard Citadel large round base.
First French Indian War 10mm Painted!
Colour the hatchets red
I have had an interest in the French-Indian War since the 1980s when buying a book with Gerry Embleton illustrations in piqued my interest. More reading followed and I have small forces of militia, non-combatants, rangers, and Indians in 30mm.
Since then I have wanted to depict larger engagements on the table top. A combination of two Pendraken 10mm armies on eBay and satisfying my curiosity about Piquet by buying Field of Battle resulted in rules and figures to hand.
Ooops!
Being a typical wargamer I decided to use my new Pendraken Indians for the French forces. This meant needing to buy (yes, of course I needed to) some Indians for the British. I decided to use Old Glory figures as their AWI line includes a bag of Indians, and they are cast as single figures not on strips.
What they are like and how I painted them
The figures are nicely proportioned although some muskets are a bit tree trunk like, and very little flash to remove. I primed with Citadel white undercoat, painted with various makes of modeller’s acrylics, followed by a brown wash over flesh and warm colours, and finished with Humbrol satin varnish. Results are below.
Old Glory 10mm Indians
Next task
Paint some British officer types to identify the units on a table and then it’s basing time!
