Fletchers about to ruin my fun !

The above (Flashy) picture shows the hordes of Fletcher's painting,piling,bricklaying and plumbing goblins appear on the horizon ready to drive me away from my village for........one to 5 weeks.( The large troll is the project manager about to stomp on a wayward goblin !).
Yes, I can scarcely believe it myself. Fletcher Building will repair our quake damaged home starting in three weeks time.No more blue tarp on the roof and walls, no more plywood window frames and wonky house ! (unless of course they do a crap job) However, it means packing up everything and I wont be painting in that time as we are staying in a motel unit in Redwood. So now I'm in a mad rush to finish what I am doing, pack it away nicely and move.

So to get the mad rush rolling I started to base all those figures I have done in the last wee while. Mostly 15mm Napoleonic Prussians and French|Poles. I have applied my sand "base" which will then be painted earthy tones, dry brushed and then flocked with static grass and other flora.( It was also a reminder that my Cav units are missing Standards). AB French Cuirrassiers in the front followed by Old Glory Prussian Landwher lancers.

Below is a close up of the 15mm troops -  Poles (Front), Prussian Landwher(Middle) (Both Old Glory), Horse Artillery (rear - minifigs) and Westfalian Hussars (Left - Lancashire Games). My 15mm flags are all from Flags for AB's and they are quite nice.

Another 4 6mm Union Regiments for the meat grinder, I think I have done 14 so far so a handy force to game with already.

I have found my Box of 28mm Russians and Prussians and have started to re base them (As they had no damage from Mr Shakey), in that box I found 16 unpainted Russian Artillery and 1 6pdr horse gun. I then realised I buggered up the order so I needed to get some more artillery pieces so I have found the Esci guard Artillery 12pdrs actually fit in quite well. So I have started to paint them in Russian colours and I have the base colours done before wash and highlights. Behind the guns are my Old Glory crewmen of which all I need to do is some shading on the black bits and the odd touch up.

A bad shot my some of the crewmen. The last green highlight really brought the figures to life, thought they look better to the eye than the photo so once I finish the other highlights they should be good to go.

So what will I do for 4 or 5 weeks, hopefully get some game time in as I will be a lot closer to my work and some other gamers I know.

Cheers !

Repainting and Rebasing 25mm Napoloenic French

I am trudging along with repainting\rebasing my 28mm Napoleonics after the Feb quake stuffed then up good and proper. I have finished the First Heavy Cavalry unit and decided to do three units at once (Well four figures at a time).

Below is my first every lead regiment - a 25mm Hotspur French Line unit. In the throes of being repainted and some new recruits (Off that purveyor of old classic - Richard Shield)  to make almost 2 units. These guys are pure 25mm, the used to be sold by Military Miniatures and after the Designer died (In a car crash so I was told) the Hotspur line trickled away. Battleline Minis sell the medieval range but the Napoleonic molds are gone forever, I for one would certainly love to get my hands on them as the small range is quite neat. God knows why, next to 28mm they look like Hobbits but sentimental attachment is overwhelming.





 

I also bought some wire hand made trees from some chaps in Hong Kong, so I am basing them on foamboard and plan to use them as Orchard trees for 15mm (Or massive trees in 6mm). They are excellent trees and far easier to deal with than Woodland Scenics tree kits

15mm Fantasy

And so another project takes flight from the deep caverns of my demented "ohh ohh shiny" wargamers mind. I have a tonne of 15mm Fantasy figures that I plan to do some solo gaming with for RallyRoundTheKing and Warrior Heroes.

I have a number of Dwarves, Elves, Goblins, Humans and various beasts  to game with (All in 15mm) and I have some good solo games\ideas to come up with.  My games will follow the Fantasy World that the Warrior Heroes\RRTK rules are set in, Talomir. One of the nations is the Border Kingdoms, the human realm that holds back the Green Horde (Orcs and Gobbos). The nation is modeled on Feudal France so the forces I will use are a mix of Saxon and Normans.  My small campaign will only focus on a small part of Talomir, those parts I have forces for, at the moment I am just working out the campiagn hook and some other rules.

So to begin with I purchased some Splintered Light Saxons (and Romano British) and I have glued some shields on below. Not bad figures though there is a marked difference in the size of the RomanoBrits (on the right) and the Saxons (The two on the left). Either it wasnt a good year height wise for the Saxons or the two ranges are different - So Ill make the Romano's champion or Kings Guard figures given their beefy size.



Below is a Alternative Armies 15mm Troll, a nice figure and not the Peter Jackson Hollywood style.



Below is my statue figure, a 25mm Grenadier Elf but I though I'd paint him grey and use him as a Scenery piece for my tabletop.



The large scales games are small enough for the kitchen table and the armies are sort of HOT\DBA style armies so it seems very easy to pick up. The greatest asset of the rules is that they are designed for solo play and have a large number of guides and tables for determining non player actions. I plan to use these for my Talomir Fantasy Campaign just to generate some random battles.

As I am also a bit of a Tolkien fan I've picked up a 25mm baby Dragon to do some Lonely Mountain skirmish games. (The 15mm figure is simply to show the scale though I wonder how my 18th Century lads would take on a dragon)



I might have to sell the rest of these ww2 28mm figures to make room for this all !

20mm Command Decision WW2

Happy New Year to everyone. I have been very busy recently painting, just haven't been too fussed about taking photos as well as I seem to struggle to take pictures late at night. So a day off today on "Daddy day care" so I took some pictures in the sun (And still struggled due to Arabella trying to grab everything).

I have drafted 5 blog posts on the other projects I have going so I can add more detail as to what I'm doing instead of having one mega post. Todays post is 20mm WW2 !

The above figures are A Company, 1st Battalion Royal Fusiliers,  5th Indian Brigade, 4th Indian Division.
(My grandfather's unit)

One of my favourite periods, and such a good source of memories from my teenage days fighting Ion - Desert WW2 British, Italian and German (....and Japanese).  Below are some platoons of115 Shutzen Regiment, 15th Panzer Division. A mix of Airfix and Italeri DAK figures.



I am painting a company at a time of each country, just to make it varied and interesting aswell and so far it has been fun.Painting plastic 1/72 figures brings back such memories, being 13 or14 watching the World Series Cricket on TV3 while painting ww2 (And most likely high as a kite on the fumes from Humbrol Enamel paints). In the garage I have a large box full of ww2 models (Made and unmade), figures and resin vehicles and I plan to have 5 "Armies" so I will make a company at a time, I have no fixed deadline, but as 1/72 paint quite easily I'll just plug away at them. So on a tray I have - 1 company each of Germans, British, Japanese and Italian and I'll just work my way up.

The Forces

1941 8th Army (4th Indian Division)- Airfix and SHQ Infantry and a mix of Resin and plastic Vehicles.
D.A.K (115 Schützen Regiment and 1/8 Panzer Bn, 15th Panzer Division 1941. - Airfix, Italeri infantry and all plastic vehicles.
1941 Italian - (60th Infantry Division Sabratha)-Airfix, SHQ and Waterloo Infantry and Resin vehicles
Japanese - I have tonnes of them for some reason so what the hell ! I do have some Americans somewhere, but I've never been to fussed on painting Americans for some reason.

Below some Japanese infantry of the Saipan Defense Force.





Cheers

20mm WW2 and orher earth movers

Hi,

I recently was pointed to a blog regarding 20mm WW2 tanks and figures, this of course then motivated me to attack the plastic mountain in the garage and try and slowly get my 20mm CD collections going again.

 When I came back from the UK I found my 1/72 armies stored in my parents garage has been crushed to pieces by some heavy items and pretty much I rescued around 20% of it, these armies were of course 8th Army, D.A.K and a '44 PzGr force. So I popped down to Acorn Models, saw Stan in ChCh and bought some DAK, 8th Army, Italians and Japanese Airfix\italeri figures, I then realised that half of the vehicles I needed werent available anymore so I stored it all and got my 28mm Nappies going again.

About 1500 28mm figures later here I am. Japanese and Italian plastic kits and resin kits are plentiful as are resin  8th Army vehicles that I dont have to scratch build (Badly). So I am going to paint a company of each nation a week (6 figures each) to slowly get things going again and here is my progress so far.

The usual suspects - 15mm Prussian Old Glory Lancers undercoated.

 My HQ element of D.A.K half done- those classic old Airfix figures are still a joy to paint.

 Airfix brit uniforms done but all webbing\skins etc needs finishing.

 My Japanese Battalion guns courtesy of Italeri kit I found at Acorn models.

 A frontline wargaming resin Britsh Light utility truck. I have painted a vehicle in 15 odd years and it shows :). Base coated, inked and some highlight done but I need to do it again as its pretty shabby job due to painting during earthquakes.

 And a game. Hayden and I played another 6mmm ACW game last night using the Polemos rules, an encounter battle that was interesting. My troops were excellent in deployment but when we came near the CAS line I rolled 4 x 1's in 4 moves for initiative which meant I couldnt do anything at all.

Hope all are safe and well in ChCh.

Gaming and more painting.

ACW
Last week Hayden and I managed to play test Polemos ACW rules in 6mm at his place. It was a simple afair with a brigade a piece which was OK until I ran into the issue of not being able to move for about 4 turns in a row. If the game had of been larger this wouldn't have been a problem but in the end as my infantry hid in the fields cowering before the Confederates I simply ran out of any ability to really do anything apart from snarl menacingly. I did however make a pincer move with what I had left and hit both flanks ending up in a Confederate battery and Regiment getting hit in the rear and turning tail. But in the end I could barely move those men that didnt want to run for the hills and that was that, it was a good game, the typical slowish game when learning the rules.

The rules have some holes in them but on apart from that they are good, though I did curse my luck at killing Hayden's inept brigade commander who was then replaced by an ADC of excellent grade. Hopefully we will have another, larger game next week and I can get some pics. I have also been making some 6mm scenery so we shall see how that goes. We do plan to run a small campaign to get some games in that arent of the pickup variety.

What else is going on !
I have, once again made an attempt at getting an old project off the ground which is some Middle Earth style skirmishes using Ganesha games Songs of Blades and Heros rules.

I have been a fan of the Hobbit and LoTR since I was a young lad and to me they are such an exciting enviroment that I can't resist some small skirmish solo games. While I detest Games Workshop rules and "expensive empire" like the plague I have found my 15mm figures, made an order for some more and in the new year plan to have some solo games. I've always been tempted to refight various actions from the books (and now movies) that I thought I would give it a go and its all simply for the silliness of it all. Top of my list are the following:
i) Can Aragorn and Gimli actually stand on a bridge at Helms Deep and repel a horse of Orcs while the gate is repaired ? or true to the book can Aragorn and Eomer hack and Slash their way out ?
ii) Would some warriors and some halflings be able to fight off a goblin mass in Durins tomb in Moria ?
iii) Can mounted horsemen ride down the Helms Deep causeway through several million orcs as the Movie suggests ?
iv)Plus some other general scraps and fights from the Hobbit and LoTR, I do plan to focus on some Moria actions as I'm always up for some Dungeon Globlin bashing.

Did you know a GW Balrog (28mm scale) is at the whopping price of $113 ? A regiment of 28mm orcs around $64 whilst a 15mm packet of 16 Orcs from Alternative Armies is $8 . 15mm has so many advantages !

Cheers

First Week of December.

Its been a very good week painting and I have achieved a lot, I think I have been doing 3 hours a night apart from Thursday. On Thu I was supposed to go and play 6mm ACW with Hayden but Arabella wouldnt go to bed and the missus was a little frazzled so wargaming went out the window (What is it with Arabella and Wargaming nights !)

On the table this week were a number of items, my first 15mm Prussian Old Glory Unit has been completed and partially based. A battalion of Rhineland Landwher and I have to say Prussians are great painting, simple blue uniforms with minimal lace (Chassuers of the Garde eat your hearts out !).

From another Angle, the Standard is a "Flags for AB" version.

Also on the table are my first Polish unit, the 16th (From memory), they are Old Glory figures again but the Volt\Gren arent very crisp facially. However they have turned out not too bad, though it takes me the same time to paint 3 stands of Poles as it does 6 stands of Prussians.

More angles of the Poles.

Some prep work on the next few units. Next on my, rather large list of things to do is the continuation of my 28mm French repainting surge, I have 2 Front Rank Dragoon units that need deseprate attention (20 years and earthquakes have them in a sorry state) and at the same time I will paint my Perry Dragoons that I have done some test figures for. Add into the mix a 15mm Prussian Uhlan unit and it should be a good week or so of Cavalry. I undercoated the plastics and lancers this morniing with my trusty Dulux Matt Black.

My test figures for repainting my earthquake damaged 28mm Westphalian Army. They will be rebased as part fo this project on bases of four and hopefully will look good again.

And its those bloody Cuirrassiers again, glued to their base and just need a Standard and some earth\greenery. My fourth 15mm AB unit in 4 months and I still have 4 to go (Do I really need 12 Cavalry units - YES !) as I plan todo some refights.

And their big brother, my 28mm Cuirassier unit, the 4th if memory recalls. 20 years old now and not looking too bad though the broken sabres will need some attention at some point. All I need to do on these is add some gold\brass highlight. There is nothing like seeing a 28mm Heavy Cavalry unit, they are BIG !.