Hussar! (South of the Border)

Andy has been hard at work with his brushes….

My first figures finished this year (where has the time gone?).  Eight French Hussars and four Mexican cavalry from the Maximillian Adventure (1860’s French in Mexico). Figures from Wargames Foundry.

Undercoated with Humbrol grey primer, then block painted with Vallejo or Army Painter acrylics and washed with Army Painter shades.

My Maximillian Adventure collection started over 10 years ago with the 2007/2008 MWS show Game, Non Son Hombres Son Demonios!, the Battle of Camerone:

http://www.brigademodels.co.uk/mws/ShowGames/Mexico/index.html

It has grown over the last 10 years, adding villagers, more troops, cavalry and artillery to both sides.

These will be used with various rule sets, originally we used some simple participation rules (available at the above website), we played some gamers at the Society using Stargrunt (with adaptions), recently we’ve been playing The Men Who Would Be Kings, but I think we’ll be trying  Rebels and Patriots soon.

Slammer Update #1

Tony F shows off some of the new models he’s putting together for next weekend’s extended meeting

If you’ve missed the previous updates, we’ve extended the hours for our August bank holiday weekend meeting, with the club open until 7pm. To take advantage of this, two members are putting on extra-large games catering for lots of players.

My offering is a 15mm science-fiction game set in the Hammer’s Slammers universe of US author David Drake. With around 10-12 players expected to take part we’ll need lots of forces to go round, so I’ve been working away on some new mercenary detachments. The first to be finished is this unit of Foster’s Mercenaries, a specialist air-defence and artillery outfit. They are equipped with huge multi-wheeled Centurion transport vehicles – some are command or transport vehicles, the others armed with howitzers or rapid-firing calliopes. The detachment also has an organic infantry element for local defence.

The vehicles and infantry are all from Brigade Models and you can read a bit more about them on the BM blog, including details on construction and painting. Even better, this is another task knocked off my To-do list for the year 🙂

Dark Age Vikings

The first of a trio of painting updates from Andy

These are Artizan Design figures, six Hirdmen with two handed axes and two Hirdmen “with spears”. I bought these second hand from Colonel Bill’s.

The spearmen didn’t come with spears, so I gave one of the spearmen a standard, using a brass spear and a “Raven Standard” drawn up in PowerPoint; the other I decided to make a Jarl and gave him a spare sword from a Gripping Beast Plastic Saxon Thegn boxes.

The figures were undercoated black and then block painted in various shades of Vallejo browns, greys and greens. They were then washed in appropriate Army Painter washes, with the quilted leather armour getting a couple of coats.

The two shields were painted plain white on the front and transfers from Little Big Men Studios and Battle Flag applied before varnishing.

Vive L’Empereur

Another update from Andy … he has been busy !

To give myself some variety in my French Forces for the Maximillian Adventure (1861 – 1867) I have painted up some Artillery crew and Officers.

These are from Wargames Foundry’s Franco Prussian War (1870 – 1871) range; Foundry don’t do Maximillian specific artillery crew, but the FPW figures are close enough and preferable (to me) to the Crimean War (1854-1856) alternative.

Two of the Officers were painted up in Artillery uniform, these together with the six crewmen will give me the option of having two, four man gun crew in my French forces. The other two were painted as Infantry / Foreign Legion officers.

I used Games Workshop’s Chaos Black spray undercoat, followed by Vallejo acrylics. The flesh was base coated with Brown Sand, followed by Medium Flesh Tone.

The Artillery uniform is predominantly blue (Vallejo Dark Blue) jacket and trousers, with red trim (Vallejo Flat Red). Belts and gaiters are white, boots, cartridge box and scabbards are black.

Some of the artillery crew have slung carbines, these had Beige Brown woodwork with Gunmetal Grey barrels and metalwork.

The Infantry officers differed mainly in that the trousers were white, not blue.

Once the painting was done the blue coats and trousers were given an Army Painter Quick Shade Blue Wash, and the hands and faces a Flesh Wash.

The figure bases were done in the same way as the Mexican Peons in my last blog post and varnished with Humbrol Spray Matt Varnish.

I’ve previously painted a couple of artillery pieces for this game, but these are large field pieces. I also wanted a lighter piece, so bought a small mountain gun from Gringo 40. This had a very simple paint job. Black undercoat, Beige Brown carriage and Gunmetal Grey barrel.

That’s it for the French in Mexico for now, next on the painting table are some Viking Huscarls, but the French will get some Hussars before too long, they are in the pipeline.

Viva Mexico

Update from Andy on his French in Mexico project

I’ve just completed a small addition to the Mexican Juarista forces, eight peons mostly armed with machetes, apart from three with assorted firearms. These will form part of a “Tribal Infantry” unit for The Men who would be Kings rules.

These are from Wargames Foundry’s Old West range, and were painted in my usual simplistic style.

I used Games Workshop’s Chaos Black spray undercoat, followed by Vallejo acrylics. The flesh was base coated with Brown Sand, followed by Dark Flesh. Most of the clothing is plain white, apart from one figure in a bold red (Flat Red) shirt with green sash (Flat Green), and a couple with Beige or Deck Tan shirts. Sombreros were painted various brown shades, with an Army Painter Soft Tone Quick Shade applied once dry.

Firearms had Beige Brown woodwork with Gunmetal Grey barrels and metalwork. Sandals were painted Black or German Camouflage Black Brown.

Flesh was then washed with Army Painter Flesh Wash Quick Shade. The Red shirt and Green sash had similar washes in the respective colours, again Army Painter Quick Shade. The white clothing was left unwashed.

Bases were painted with Army Painter Banshee Brown, after a bit of a search I found this to be the closest match to the original emulsion paint I used for my Maximillian troops bases when we used them for the club’s show Game “Non Son Hombres Son Demonios!” in 2007 / 2008. Patched of flock were then applied using PVA glue.

Once dried they were varnished with Humbrol Spray Matt Varnish.

Viva Mexico !

More Andy King updates today – he’s been busy !

Another contingent of Mexican republican troops, an Officer, a Dismounted Cavalryman and 6 x Soldiers. These are all from the Wargames Foundry Maximillian range.

And some more villagers from the Old West range, 4 men and 4 women. Some of them might also see service as artillery crew for a Poorly Drilled Field Gun in The Men Who Would Be Kings games.

These were grey undercoated (ran out of black) then block painted in acrylics, washed with AP tone washes and matt varnished. Fiddliest bit was the officer’s cuff lace.

More LotR Goblins

Another To-Do list update from Andy King…

Last instalment for the Moria Goblin force are two bases of smaller spiders. These came from a Tesco Halloween novelty pack, around 50 spiders for £1. They are not that big, around 20mm across the legs, so only room for 2 on a 40mm base. I only wanted 2 more bases, and didn’t want another full pack of Copplestone spiders.

The paint job is similar to their larger cousins, a dark brown basecoat followed by drybrushing lighter shades of brown. Leg segments, eyes, pincers and body spots were then added.

I’ve also finished three Khazâd Guard Dwarves, there were E-bay purchases and were partly painted when I bought them.

Lord Of the Rings Moria Reinforcements.

A To-Do list update from Andy King:

A raiding party comprising 8 Goblins, 4 Giant spiders and 13 bats. The goblins are from Games Workshop, the Spiders are from Copplestone castings and the bats came from a wildlife park shop (wish I could remember where).

The standard bearer was a simple conversion of one of the sword and shield armed goblins. I cut off the sword and tidied up the hand, then drilled it to take a length of florists wire. The sword was then stuck on to the goblin’s waist. The banner came from a Games Workshop flag sheet and was fixed to another piece of wire, then secured to the upright with needle and thread, with a couple of drops of superglue to hold it in place.

I don’t claim to be a great painter, my objective is something reasonable to use on the gaming table. The goblins were block painted using Vallejo acrylics on a black undercoat, followed by Army Painter “Tone” paints of various hues.

The spiders had a dark brown basecoat followed by drybrushing lighter shades of brown. Leg segments, eyes, pincers and body spots were then added.

The bats had a black basecoat followed by dark grey and brown drybrushes, with the mouth picked out in dark red.

All then finished with Vallejo matt varnish. These almost finish off my Moria Goblin army (some smaller spiders to follow) and will mostly be used in Dragon Rampant games. Perhaps they are out scouting and came across the trail of four hobbits and some ponies seen around here recently? Mind you, if they do catch them up my money’s on the hobbits.

The Road Goes Ever On and On…

… but it does seem to reach the end eventually.

Tony F has an update on one of his To-Do list projects, completing his Scouring of the Shire hobbits which were started last year:

This only involved 12 figures, eight of which were already part-painted, so it wasn’t much of task, but it’s done at last. The final four figures were the hero hobbits, Pippin, Nine-fingered Frodo (yes, his tiny left index finger is missing), Sam and Merry, all on ponies (I already have foot versions). Pippin and Merry are wearing their uniforms as Heroes of Gondor and Rohan respectively.

In wild celebration I then went off and painted some elves – Elrond Half-Elven and his sons Elladan and Elrohir (who don’t get a look-in at all in the films, but in the book were present at the climactic battle at the Black Gate). Master Elrond in his Last Alliance armour is a really nice figure – I’m not quite so sold on the poses of the two junior elves, who are a bit two-dimensional, but the sculpting is nice.