This Wednesday’s work in progress sees another week packed with miniatures.
This week Tony F opens with a Rohirrim standard bearer, to keep his hopes of a LOTR figure a week going.
Lord of the Rings Standard Bearer
Next up Andy has continued making progress on his various Dark Age figures.
The multitude of Dark Age miniatures
Eric has managed to finish his crew for Zona Alfa and they are looking pretty good.
The whole crew – “Mad” Gregor, Dimitri, “Big” Mik, Vasily The Kid, Arkady (the leader).
Eric has also managed to put together some critters in the form of Zombies.
The zombies, George and Mildred
And last but not least John L has given us a sneak peak of some newly based Chilean Infantry, just waiting for a bit of vegetation.
Chilean infantry
John mention the following “A new rule book for the Pacific War 1879 – 1885 is out so I might give this a look.” So here’s hoping John gives us some more pictures of this projects.
The latest innovation in hobby paints has been Citadel’s new Contrast Paints. These are fairly dilute acrylic paints, like a thick wash in consistency but with more pigment than a wash. The idea is to speed up the painting of armies by getting your shading and highlighting in one coat. Having tried them out I’ve been impressed so far, although they do need to be used on areas of heavy detail – they don’t really work on large flat areas when they can result in a very patchy finish.
I thought I’d give them a try on some 6mm AFVs to see how they worked and if they did speed things up. I’m using some Brigade Models 6mm Hammer’s Slammers vehicles to try them out on – nine Prosperity National Army tanks and APCs. These have plenty of surface detail so should be ideal.
All of the models were cleaned up, assembled and then given a good solid base coat of Halfords white car primer.
Stage 1 – Base Colour
The first colour I used was an overall coat of Agaros Dunes (desert sand, essentially). With the Contrast paints you need to take care that the paint goes into all of the nooks, crannies and panel lines – if not, when it dries you can be left with unsightly white spots. So make sure you brush along the direction of the panel lines, not across them. Try not to let the paint pool too much in one place either.
Stage 2 – Camouflage Coat
When dry, I followed this up with a camouflage coat of Militarum Green in irregular stripes across the hull, 3-4 stripes per vehicle. This needs to be reasonably thick, too thin and the colour doesn’t stand out enough.
Stage 3 – Tracks
I then used Gore-Grunta Fur (an orangey-brown) on the tracks – I painted one track on each vehicle, then went back and did the second track – it just gives the first one a chance to dry a bit and reduces the chance of finger smudges.
Stage 4 – Weapons
The only other painting on these models was to pick out some of the guns in silver, followed by a Nuln Oil (black) wash.
And that’s it – battle ready 6mm vehicles using just five paints (plus primer and varnish). I did consider giving them an overall drybrush of a pale stone colour (Citadel Terminatus Stone would be ideal) but they really are fine as they are. Excluding drying time, these took less than an hour so it’s a great way to paint large forces quickly.
It’s Wednesday again so that means a chance to see what the club members have been up to.
Mark J has made some good progress on his 6mm panzer companies.
Light Tank Company
Mark says “a tale of two companies; 1 panzer grenadier company with heavy weapon support and a light tank company. I’ve used two shades of dark yellow on the tanks, I wish I could say this was done intentionally but it wasn’t; never trust what the spray tin tells you. Anyway I feel it gives the unit that cobbled together look, which was what was going on at the time, each platoon was usually responsible for applying the dark yellow paint and camouflage, so there were lots of variations. I used contrast paint for the camouflage striping. Two more light companies on the go at the moment.”
Grenadier Company Infantry
Mark also had this to say about his great basing for 6mm infantry that can sometimes get swamped by flock/grass. “I use the Baccus basing system, very fine sand applied using PVA, then apply a red brown wash followed by dry brushing 3 shades of sand, dark medium and light. I use a thinned PVA wash for the static grass, the grass is dropped onto the base using a small plastic bellow.”
Next up we have some Scavengers from Eric. These are from Copplestone Castings and painted up for use in games like Zona Alfa.
Copplestone castings Scavengers
Saved from last week we have some 1:3000 ships from Marcus apparently for Guadalcanal, I’m not sure I’ve seen Marcus running WW2 Navy games but maybe he is branching out.
A selection of destroyers from Navwar 1:3000 for Guadalcanal
And last but not least Steve has put together some more miniatures for Frostgrave. In his own words we have “Using some old, and some unused models, I’ve put together a party for what I’m calling ‘Dark Grave’.
Here’s Rollo Magwitch and his apprentice, Edith Blackthorn, and their band of treasure hunters…”
Rollo Magwitch and companions
That’s another WIP Wednesday from the club members, do let us know if you’re managing to make progress on your own projects.
Back in 2015 club member Marcus put together a James Bond themed game for that years show circuit. The game had secret agents being chased down a snowy mountainside pursued by numerous bad guys.
Marcus demonstrating an early mock up of the game
There were many challenges to putting on a game like this, constructing the mountain, sticking magnets to it to stop the miniatures sliding to the bottom as well as many action cards, unit stats and rules for the game.
But another challenge was a real lack of 28mm modern era skiing miniatures. Marcus could find plenty of WW2 winter troops but wanted this to be modern. Marcus did manage to find suitably positioned troops to act as the bad guys, and converted them to be on snowboards.
Modern troopers on snowboards
However Marcus needed skiing miniatures to represent the secret agent, their love interest and a final miniature for the main bad guy (well bad woman in this case).
Having dabbled a bit with sculpting miniatures I volunteered to see if I could convert some existing miniatures for the starring roles.
The man himself
Marcus provided a number of miniatures, so I started with the main character, the body was an artic trooper miniature with a head swap from a Copplestone Castings Man in Black miniature. I chose this miniature because it needed to be holding ski poles and have their feet in a suitable position for ski’s, and this one was already in a good pose.
I had changed the left hand because of the original weapon being held, repair the detail on the miniature and added a fur collar to ensure it looked suitable for cold weather.
The Female Agent before and during the conversion
The miniatures Marcus was hoping to use for the female characters I struggled to get to work, after a few failed attempts I went looking for substitutes. For the good female agent I went with the Vampire Hunter also from Copplestone Castings. After removing the weapons and replacing them with ski poles I repositioned the arms and legs into a skiing pose. Marcus wanted them to look cool so I also added a pair of sunglasses. A bit of fur for the top of the boots and jacket collar added the winter feel, rather than the leather style of the original.
The enemy agent before and during the conversion
The enemy agent proved to be the most difficult to create. After a lengthy search I found a suitable miniature from Reaper Miniatures.
The miniature came with separate hands holding different weapons. These were tricky to remove and I had to pin the hands to the main body. I decided to do a head swap on this figure since the original was wearing desert style garb. The next step saw a twist of the arms and legs, again to get that skiing pose. I also bent the cloak to give the impression of it being caught by the wind as the agent sped down the hill. Sunglasses came last with the same added fur to winterise the miniature.
The finished conversions
Here we have the finished converted miniatures. The ski’s were cut from a plastic cover off a note pad, with the final stage just to add the ski shoe binding points.
The agents in action
Tony F from the club volunteered to paint the agents and we can see them in action. This was an interesting game to create things for and a popular choice at the shows that year.
It’s Wednesday again, so let’s see what everyone has been up to.
First up we have some more Panzer progress from Mark J. Mark says tis is a picture showing some finished Germans from his 3rd Panzer project, these represent each type of vehicle painted for the mech battalion. Mark added, “Currently painting a company of panzer grenadiers, panzer III company next.”
Selection of completed 6mm German vehicles
Marcus has been busy on a number of miniatures, firstly after a bit of repair work he presents a Dreadball miniature. Apparently the lower arm needed pinning back in place. I knew of Dreadball but I’d not seen these miniatures before.
A miniature from the Dreadball Kalimarin Ancients Nameless team
Next up from Marcus we have a Tiger shark and another reptile from HLBS for Pulp Alley games. I k now Marcus has a collection of scuba miniatures these would look great next to.
Two more Marine animals to go along with those in our header image
And last but not least Andy has made a start on a selection of terrain pieces from Ainsty Castings.
Andy says you can never have enough things to hide behind
That rounds off another WIP Wednesday from the club members, next up I believe we have some WW2 ships and Tudor buildings to look forward to.
Club member John L takes us through his latest terrain project.
One of the problems with 28mm wargaming is the size and bulk of terrain. I resolved to deal with this by fitting as many buildings as possible in a shoebox in a systematic manner.
The first task was to determine building foot prints to fit in the box. I started with four single story wooden buildings.
Size test for new buildings
Phase 1
These first four buildings would be the main dwellings of the village. I elected to go for an all wood finish as these would represent traditional buildings prior to modern materials (a mistake as I spent days cutting out planking from cereal box cardboard) The building shell was foam core and exposed rafters were from coffee stirrers.
The first two village dwellings
I used matchpots for the finish with light dry brushing of acrylic for the faded paintwork.
Phase 2
I looked at making a number of buildings with a concrete finish and corrugated roofing (asbestos I think). Along the centre line I could fit two inverted buildings which I decided to make as Chicken sheds.
Concrete style building
I covered the foamcore shell with pva and then fine sand for the concrete effect and used corrugated foam from Hobbycraft for the roofing. To get the ivy, I used Jarvis Heath Green scatter finished with Morrison’s dried mixed herbs
Phase 3
I worked out that I could fit a further four buildings in the ones I’d made in phase 1, like Russian dolls. These would be the same construction as the Chicken sheds above. I made another Chicken shed, two workshops and a small office or dwelling.
Building number four with rust in full affect
Phase 4
I thought I could make more buildings to fit along the sides of the box so added a further two buildings, a Sauna and a Village Store.
A sauna and village shop
That’s it for the moment, twelve buildings in total, I’ve still got room in the box for wooden fences but I’m glad it’s finally finished so that I can get on with playing the game!
It’s Wednesday again, so that means a quick look at what everyone has been up to.
First up Andy has finished his Saxon, Viking and Welsh Princess. I suspect these are going to make an appearance in quite a few games.
28mm Saxon, Viking and Welsh Princess
Steve has been taking advantage of the season’s availability of various plastic creepy crawlies to paint up some monster miniatures.
Various plastic spiders and scorpions accompany a few other creatures (from Ral Patha)
Tony has finished painting up a new force for Hammers Slammers. This time the New Ukrainians, apparently they’ve already seen action (successfully), vanquishing the Thunderbolt Division.
Tony’s new force of 15mm miniatures for Hammers Slammers
Lastly for this week John L has finished painting his scratch built bunker for Zona Alfa.
Finished Bunker for Zona Alfa
The club members are definitely getting quite a bit done at the moment, next week it looks like we will have more Panzer action from Mark J and sea creatures from Marcus.
A constant of all miniature wargamers has always been to come up with your own set of rules. Every gamer has either written a set of rules (unpublished of course!) or heavily modified a published set of rules (just to to improve it), although to be fair to the club a number of home grown rules are used on a regular basis.
Jeremey takes us through such a typical Wargamer project and what happened to it.
Back in 2009 I fancied getting into mass battle fantasy games. I’d played a bit of 2nd edition Warhammer in my youth but was in a period of preferring smaller scales. I picked up a copy of Warmaster but it didn’t really grab me, the movement section with 20 plus pages (slight exaggeration) explaining how to perform a wheeling movement, just looked very similar to many of the historical rule sets that put me of historical wargaming for years.
Like all Wargamers in this situation I naturally started writing a set of 10mm fantasy rules of my own, I went with units based on round bases with no need to worry about detailed facing and movement rules.
When writing rules I’ve always had a weakness in needing actual miniatures to test the game with. I hate testing just on paper or with stand in’s, so I created two whole armies first!
Pendraken 10mm Skeletons painting up nicely
I decided to go with 10mm fantasy miniatures from Pendraken miniatures. Pendraken’s miniatures are cast individually which meant I could put them on a round base. Most other 10mm fantasy miniatures were cast on strips for 40mm wide bases. I used standard 40mm round bases and put 10 foot or 6 cavalry miniatures on each base. I was really pleased with the results but the first crack in the plan appeared as all the miniatures needed to be painted before putting them on the base and flocking the base was a pain to get between the miniatures.
Regardless I continued to torture myself and carried on creating two armies (Undead vs Barbarians).
The Barbarian army faces down the Undead hordes
Unlike a number of other rule sets I’ve written I did get to playtest this set which I called ‘Battle Fury’ (often referred to as Battle Furry!), it was a very simple ruleset with no unit facing so you just moved where you needed to. There were typical bonuses for combat based on charging and having multiple units ganging up on the enemy. Activation was done by players taking it in turns to move a unit. I also went with 10 sided dice as I’ve always found the range of a normal 6 sided dice does not offer enough variation.
Battle in full swing
Games of this type often suffer from needing lots of markers for activation, wounds etc. But I had the genius idea (in my opinion of course) of making flags for both sides that showed the number of hits the unit had remaining (see the skulls on the flags!). The rules had the units roll a number of dice based on the number of hits remaining so you could see at a glance how strong the enemy or your own units are.
Fight between the Barbarian Mammoths, Skeleton Cavalry and a Skeleton Giant
The game worked fairly well on the playtest, the forces came out quite balanced and I got the kind of game I wanted with big beasts fighting it out and plenty of back and forth action allowing for tactical moves.
Barbarians and Skeletons in full Close Combat
This project taught me a lot about writing rules, having a clear idea of the kind of game I wanted from the start really helped. But it also taught me a lot about creating games and mistakes that can often be made.
The use of round bases for this scale hasn’t really been done and so the idea that wargamers would be willing to rebase their armies is unrealistic. However the round bases packed with figures looked good and better reflected warfare in an undisciplined world where armies just charged at each other and fought to the death. The flags that could be changed to reflect the hits of a unit felt like a good idea, but having to create enough to show the correct number of hits as units suffered damage became quite a challenge.
And so this project came to a halt and the miniatures are back in the pile of unfinished ideas (which is quite large if I’m honest), although after writing this I might revisit the flag idea for my WOTR army instead of the mini dice added to the base.
I had a spare bit of balsa planking I’d used for a previous project where a piece had been cut out of it that left the remainder with a prow-like curve at one end.
I just happened to see it and then a thought popped into my head: ‘that looks like the prow of an ironclad.’
And that’s how this project came to be.
The first decision I had to make was size. It was going to be a gaming model not a scale model. Assuming that 15mm is 1/110 scale that would mean a scale model would need to be about 2 feet long.
That wouldn’t be practical since this would be used in big battle games and ground scale comes in to play.
But it had to ‘look right’ next to a 15mm figure, as if a crew could actually get in it. So it couldn’t be too small either.
The bit of balsa I had was 25cm long. I got out a 15mm figure, put it next to it and…it looked about right.
The starting point and tools.
So that’s the scale I went with – the gamer’s favourite ‘looks right’ scale.
This proved to be a simple model to make, though some processes were repetitive.
I used Wills Scenics embossed plasticard for the wooden decking. With that done I then sanded the sides to make sure it was all nice and smooth.
Hull planking added
Next came the superstructure. This was built in thick card and then clad in plasticard.
Superstructure added.
The plasticard was incised using a compass to represent the iron cladding. This got really dull! It was only after I had stuck it all together that I suddenly realised I had forgot to add any rivet details. I thought about doing it retroactively, but then I thought about the amount of rivets I would need to do and thought, ‘sod that – this is a gaming model.’
Broadside gunports and more tools.
The funnels were made from styrene tubing with a bit of styrene wrapped around the top for where the stabilising wires were attached. Guide holes were drilled and they were glued in place.
Funnels added
The wheelhouse went through two versions. Some pictures show it with sloped sides, some with slab sides. The first version I did was sloped. But when it was glued in place it gave the whole model a modern ‘sports boat’ look with all those slopes. It just didn’t look right. So I took that off and made a new, square, one. The rest of the hull furniture was made from bits of styrene and chain from an old necklace.
Second attempt at the wheelhouse and deck furniture added
Then on to the paintjob.
I got this wrong as well.
I’ll confess I don’t know too much about ACW river ironclads. I remember from ages ago seeing an ironclad game where the hulls had been painted silver (presumably to represent the iron). If I’m honest, that always seemed wrong to me, but I just respected other’s knowledge.
So I painted my model with metallic sides.
It just looked wrong and too shiny. I thought the matt varnish would dull it down, which it did. But it still looked wrong.
Time for a quick bit of research. Sure enough, my instincts were correct – they weren’t left bare metal! Black, dark grey, and light grey seem to have been the preferred colours. Even sky blue!
I prepared myself that I might have to do a re-paint.
Before that, though, I thought I’d do an experiment – an all over black wash. That seems to have worked and saved me a re-paint. It now has a darker finish, the black wash has taken off the metallic look but left it with just enough to suggest wear and tear.
I decided to do some figures that had come out of my painting pile but hadn’t been started yet.
These comprise a Viking warlord obtained from Colonel Bill (original manufacturer unknown), a Saxon Noble from Gripping Beast Plastics Saxon Thegn set and a couple of ladies from Belt Fed Miniatures, Gwendoline the Welsh Princess and Freyir the Norse Witch with her wolf companions. I also had another half dozen other wolves so decided to do these together.
In the picture above the two wolves on the right are those that came with Freyir. The three smaller wolves in the front rank are old Ral Partha figures; I don’t know who made the three larger wolves in the second rank.
All of the figures were started the same way, Halfords Grey primer undercoat, the humans then had skin base coated Brown Sand, as was Freyir’s hair. The skin was then painted with Medium Flesh Tone
First up is Freyir and her wolves. Her hair was Dry-brushed with Dark Sand, loin cloth and boots matt painted black, and then the loincloth dry-brushed London Grey. The tunic and panels on the belt were painted Chocolate Brown and her staff Beige Brown. The boot tops and wrist bands were painted Khaki Grey and the staff skull and claws Pale Sand. Earrings and hair band (not visible in picture) were Silver.
The wolves were dry-brushed with Dark Grey and then Black Grey. Mouths were painted black, tongues Red and teeth Desk Tan.
The armour on the other three figures was painted black and dry-brushed Gun Metal Grey
Gwendoline has Black hair and Dark Sand tunic. Boots are Chocolate Brown and she has a Silver necklace, wrist bangles, belt and pommel.
The Saxon has a Black Red tunic, Flat Brown trousers and Buff leggings. Belts, beard and hair are Chocolate Brown, and clock is German Camouflage Green.
The Viking has a Dark Grey tunic, Chocolate Brown belts and scabbard, Khaki Grey trousers and Flat Brown hair and beard. The figure didn’t have a weapon when I bought it, so I added an axe from the spares box, and a sword hilt from the GBP Plastic Saxons box to the empty scabbard.
All figures had appropriate coloured Army Painter washes.
Shields backs were painted black then dry-brushed Beige Brown, the faces were painted White. Gwendoline’s shield had a simple cross pattern in Flat Yellow and Red, while the other two had shield transfers from Little Big Man Studios. Shield rims were painted Japanese Uniform.
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