A cost effective way into the hobby.

I'll be the first to admit that I really don't know where this project will end up but in the meantime I'm having fun painting the figures and doing the basic conversion work required to make things work. I had long thought that the plastic Epic ACW strips offered an inexpensive way into the hobby where large armies are required and this is a slightly different approach to building big brigades for Fire & Fury (original) with lots of colourful flags and mounted Brigadiers which have the unit information on the bases for easy identity.

2nd Nassau Regt. 3D prints and the first 'Genestealers' !!

I'm enjoying seeing my YouTube channel slowly growing and have just hit 902 subscribers which is not bad going for me mumbling gruffly into a phone camera! I find it a great way to feature what I paint as it turns over. Here is the latest, 3 battalions of the 2nd Nassau at Waterloo for Stephen, 3D prints which are a perfect match for the Warlord Epic range and fill in some of the gaps. It's funny to think back maybe a decade or so when printing ones own armies would have been something of a wargamers dream! These are really nice prints, some of the best I have seen and pretty robust too. 

For David Crook I am just starting on the old GW Genestealers and what an interesting paint job they are going to be! I must say I love 'em having never painted anything like them before. We have now established the basic colours so I will work through the batch of 24 before finally going back for final detailing, especially the heads and faces etc in order to keep the finish consistent across all 24 of them, useful when working in batches of just 4 figures at a time.

The colour scheme for reference so far is:

• A base coat/primer of white ( this is a major departure for me but wanted to use thinned paints on the main body.
• Vallejo Gunmetal Blue with about 20% Vallejo medium thinner added for improved flow. This is a lovely blue with a slight metallic sheen and when used thinned it is akin to using one of fashionable 'Contrast' paints. I looked at the contrast range but could not find a colour like this one.
• A thin wash of Vallejo Blue Ink Wash then tones everything down slightly and adds shade where it runs into the gaps of the body.
• Vallejo Violet is then used 'neat' for the head and hands etc and to paint in the body parts that you can see inside the outer body which is then thinned with Ivory to achieve the highlights to the skull etc. 
• Claws painted with Ivory plus a touch of Buff and then Sepia washed around the cuticles. 
• Tongue painted Cavalry Brown, teeth Ivory with sepia wash.
• Base treated with Vallejo Earth texture, edges matt back, texture will be inked and highlighted though entire batch at the end.

And finally. having just finished another 2 regiments of Streltsy (plastic 1/72nd by Strelets I think?) for good Old John I am about to begin the 18mm AB Peninsular Napoleonic commission for Mark, the first instalment will be spread over 2 weeks painting and I'm thoroughly looking forward to seeing what I can do with those brilliant little castings.

40k Terminator Marines.

 I must say I have found painting these sci fi figures for David Crook really fun! I have been working closely with David for colour schemes etc but I think they turned out well. Very pleasing to get a short reply to these photos this morning 'Bloody Fantastic'. 

Next, onwards to Genestealers.

Bull Run Re Run!

I decided to play the 1st Bull Run scenario again as I wanted to try out some different tactics. This time I played on the printed rubber backed mat and used the Command and Colors terrain tiles as they better matched the brighter mat. A 6 to 4 Reb win this time and another very enjoyable hour and a half was spent. Included a couple of small rule points that I missed first time and picked up from the excellent video linked below which is a concise explanation of the rules of the game, for example artillery firing from a hill adds one hex to the range. Next up will be Pea Ridge.

A Mad World!

Sick of politics, back to my best therapy, painting model soldiers. Since I made this 5 days ago the World has changed!

I'll send in these guys! Terminator Marines, early GW as I understand it. being painted for David Crook and my first time with anything sci fi related, really enjoying the challenge.

Finally something soothing for the old Noggin in these turbulent times.

Latest video, another game of Battle Cry & Terminator Marines!

It occurred to me fairly recently that the 15 years of photos now lost in the posts of the past could be used to make a number of period specific videos for my YouTube channel. Having started with a couple from Old Johns commission work I have this time moved on to the French and Indian War collection that I put together around 10 years ago or so. 

Battle Cry.

I played another game of Battle Cry on Friday morning, this time the 1st Bull Run scenario and once again I really enjoyed myself. It ended in a 6 to 3 Union victory with the Confederate centre deployed on the hill completely devastated by concentrated Union fire, I'm sure that playing the Forced march card as the first card really allowed the Union centre to get quickly into firing line and put the Rebs on the back foot from the start. Battle Cry is not as nuanced as Commands & Colors Napoleonics, for example when the unit that Stonewall Jackson was attached to on the hill was eliminated there was no roll to see if he became a casualty, a lone General needs to be attacked by a fresh unit, so he slipped away on the next Reb turn!

Having been forced to retreat from the hill by Union fire Jackson led his unit back up again where it was destroyed by withering Union fire.

 

The Rebs occupied the hill along it's length but the firefight went very much in the Unions favour! 

Finally, David and I had a long chat on the phone last weekend where we discussed the painting of his figures. These are my first ever Sci Fi figures so I needed a lot of guidance but here are the completed first two and I am now using these as the basis of the rest of the Terminator 'Salamander' squad.

A game of 'Battle Cry', Space Marines & some Vintage figures!

An odd mix in the title there I know, but it's just what's been occupying my time and my thoughts this week so here we go!

To begin with I played my first full game of Battle Cry on Friday afternoon and enjoyed every minute of it. Rather than begin with the first scenario (which is 1st Bull Run) I simply put down some terrain tiles and then placed all of my units on the board, 25 infantry, 6 artillery and 4 cavalry so far. Probably too many units on the board but after a couple of hours play it resulted in a Union victory 5 to 3. I played the game on my painting desk where it was well lit so I took a few photos. I simply played both hands of command cards the best I could but I think that to begin with both sides were slightly hampered by the cards until I realised that I had not shuffled the pack to begin with! Once the armies became engaged - the forced march card is brilliant for getting units into the fight - then casualties began to mount up. The Rebs played the 'Fieldworks' card (I think it's called that) so could throw up three sections of hasty works which they did when deployed on a hill forcing the Yanks to switch targets. The cavalry 'Hit and Run' card was great fun and used to good effect. The artillery 'Bombard' card is a powerful card allowing all artillery units to fire twice that move. Unlike Commands & Colors dice are not reduced as units take hits in Battle Cry which took a bit of getting used to begin with. All in all a really good fun game. Set up and pack away was very quick and easy. From this week I'll start to play through the scenarios in order.

Space Marines! In exchange for this wonderful game AND the complete set of the Time Life ACW books (Oh yes), I'll be painting around 60 Warhammer 28mm figures and intend to make the very best job of them. Obviously it's something completely new to me but I do enjoy a painting challenge. More on this as things progress but yesterday I painted an initial test figure to try out a shade of green ( this unit are called the Salamanders), will no doubt need to make changes to the colours etc but it was good to get some paint on one of the figures and I'll be discussing things with David this morning.

Along with the game arrived a nice little extra gift from David, this wonderful set of 30mm 'Jason' ECW figures were part of the late Eric Knowles collection and will make a great little vignette for display, the castings are packed with period character so another little painting project on the cards.

Funny enough I also painted a group of 30mm ECW figures for Old John a couple of weeks ago which John tells me are by Hinton Hunt, interesting as I had not realised that HH made figures in this scale but again they are really nice figures.

Rollinmats review and 150th Anniversary Battle Cry!

Another quick video, a review of a printed rubber backed gaming mat by Rollingmats of Spain and I have finally got my hands on a copy of Battle Cry thanks to David Crook, all revealed in the video!

Almost 8 weeks later it's back!

Postie bought me this little surprise today (see my previous posts). At least the contents are all intact. No word on  the  £14.00 postage refund but I'm relieved to have it back as it contains £400 worth of painted figures that I thought was lost! Finishing off Noels current order and then the entire batch will be heading off again.

A busy start to the year!

As I'm fortunate enough to retain a set of regular customers I will keep the painting service running for at least another year. One decision I have had to reluctantly make is that I can't accept anything smaller than Epic 13.5mm scale from now on. To be honest there has been a very slight deterioration to my focus over the last year, not serious but I want to avoid unnecessary strain. I do tend to 'rest my eyes' for an hour in the afternoon  (or as my wife calls it 'taking a snooze'), but I'm still putting in several hours each day at the painting desk be it priming, painting or basing. 

That said I'm keeping busy and will still be rolling out monthly batches for Old John, Mark, Noel and Stephen. A few photos of recent stuff below which includes Epic scale 3D resin Dutch infantry battalions, Warlord Epic ACW's (another 40 strip order from Noel), more lovely Streltsi infantry for Old John along with a group of rare 30mm scale Hinton Hunt ECW's. I'll be starting work on Mark's 18mm AB Peninsular project in March.

For myself I have been quietly beavering away at something new, building up ACW armies for use on the Battle Cry game board replacing the individual plastic soldiers with small bases, 4 per unit. This has involved trimming down a lot of  Epic strips as you can see, it's been a labour of love but about done with over 600 figures painted. What began as a retro Fire & Fury project has developed into this because I have decided that from now on I want to focus on playing boardgames with miniatures, in comfort on my painting desk. So no more terrain building for me from now on.

I'll have more  exciting news about the Battle Cry game in a future post.