Friends, Romans, Countrymen…

28mm miniatures by Aventine. Shield transfers are LBMS. 

Well, now I’ve gone and done it. An entirely new period, and my first foray into 28mm mass battles.

These enormous Impetus bases are pretty cool. After seeing the prices for Impetus base from Litko, I did some frantic searching for an inexpensive alternative. I used 3mm PVC foam board, which is the material they make signs out of. IT’S FANTASTIC STUFF. Closed cell foam, dimensionally stable, relatively easy to cut, can be chamfered, sanded, and responds well to superglue and (slightly less well) to PVA. And paint sticks to it. I should be able to base and entire Impetus army for about $8 worth of material.

I’m planning on doing a couple of Impetus armies – Republican Romans vs. the forces of Pyrrhus of Epirus, and here are the first of them.

These guys are Principes, who were back-up for the front line Hastati, and who were themselves backed up by the third line of Triarri (which I probably just misspelled). It’s early days, but I’m learning!

Oh, and I might have accidentally bought a 15mm starter army for DBA. In a slightly different period – Marian Romans. More on that later…

Aventine figures have a nice level of clean detail that’s very easy to paint. And the castings are clean as a whistle. They carry LBMS transfers and wire spears in their shop, which is very convenient. My figures shipped out the next day, and arrived from Ireland in about 10 days. Better service than I’ve gotten from a number of US companies!

 

I desperately need a Don Quixote figure…

I’ve been scratch building a Spanish windmill for 28mm skirmish gaming in the Peninsular War. Today I put together the wheel assembly, which was a major milestone. Now I need to figure out the nacelle, the roof peak, basing, and hopefully not completely ruin the entire model when I paint it.

The main body of the windmill is blue foam, cut at a slight taper using a Proxxion hot wire cutter, and crudely rendered with spackle. The blades, hub, doors, and window frames are all of various sorts of basswood. The roof is of plastic card, and was laboriously assembled with superglue, a paper form, and a prayer. That roof was a bear to figure out; I had to do MATH, y’all!

I figure this building will survive roughly 0.75 actual games before the blades are destroyed by hamfisted gamers (meaning myself, most likely).

Windmill! And the blades spin, too. Unfortunately I can’t post video to WordPress. There’s still a ton of work to do to this thing, but I’m glad the blades didn’t end up all cattywhampus. Don’t worry, I’m going to sand on the plaster render a bit, before painting.

I’m also posting the current state of my British and allied force, so that this post contains more than just a single picture of a half finished windmill.

A few boys (lads?) from the 52nd, a gun (9 pounder, maybe?) with RHA crew, and their friends from the 3rd Caçadores. I have some incredibly cool guerrillas on the painting deck.

 

Hello, 2017

Hello all. It’s been a good while since the last post!

It’s been my tradition to do an end-of-the-year recap of my hobby activities, as well as some sort of projection/prognostication about what will happen in the coming year. Well, I’m going to keep it short and sweet:

2016 was a mediocre-to-bad hobby year. 1st world problems, right? !

2017 will be better. I’m not forecasting much activity on the historical miniatures front this year. I haven’t heard from my regular opponent in quite some time, so the Lasalle project is on hold for now. Who knows, he may pop back up, and things might take off again.

The one hobbyriffic bright spot from 2016 is that I’ve been playing quite a bit of good old D&D with a couple of groups of friends. For now, I’m going to concentrate my efforts in that area. Tangentially included in said efforts will be some sort of elaborate 36″x36″ terrain board for Song of Blades and Heroes. I plan to start that project very soon!

So, that’s the plan. I hope the new year finds you all well. I’ll close this out with photos of recent work, all in 28mm…

Mr. Rocklobber and Goblin Companions. These are all Red Box Minis. The troll/ogre fellow is a resin casting. Rocklobber is my first large(ish) monster figure, and was a blast to paint. I’m going to try and do more things of that sort in the future. Notice the long braided scalp on the front goblin’s spear? Yikes! I think he’s supposed to be the mastermind of this bunch. Pot of sky blue paint shown for scale.

The entire Goblin warband. The guys with spears in the back were painted a looooong time ago. It’s nice to have finally finished up the collection.

The heroes. Some are new to the blog, some are not.  I’ll break these down into logical groups, and get some closeup shots. The vast majority of these minis are Red Box, sculpted (and sold) by Tre Manor.

The elves. The middle figure is a de Terlizzi masterwork mini, sculpted by Tom Meier. The other two are Red Box. I think these have all made an appearance on my site before, but here they are again!

The wee folk, plus Gus the mule. The humanoids are all Red Box minis. The pack mule is a Warlord figure from their ancient Romans line. They use Pilum in fantasy settings, right?! And no, I’m not insinuating the shorties are jackasses by association. I need more halflings in my collection.

A couple of human casters. Both are Red Box. The fellow on the left is new, and might function as a druid, or some sort of hedge wizard. The fellow on the right has been seen on this page before. He’s seen quite a bit of use, and is looking a little worse for the wear. His robes were inspired by Jimmy Page’s Zoso outfit.

Various humans from Red Box minis. I think these three have all been seen on the blog before. The fellow on the left is Ivan Brown-cup, my 5th level Cleric of Chauntea. Man, that’s nerdy!

A couple more humans from Red Box. The fellow on the left is new to the site.

The heroes. I’ll break these down into logical groups, and get some closeup shots. The vast majority of these minis are Red Box miniatures, sculpted (and sold) by Tre Manor.

A couple more humans from Red Box. The fellow on the left is new to the site.

Various humans from Red Box minis. I think these three have all been seen on the blog before. The fellow on the left is Ivan Brown-cup, my 5th level Cleric of Chauntea. Man, that’s nerdy!

A couple of casters. Both are Red Box. The fellow on the left is new, and might function as a druid, or some sort of hedge wizard. The fellow on the right has been seen on this page before. He’s seen quite a bit of use, and is looking a little worse for the wear.

The wee folk, plus Gus the mule. The humanoids are all Red Box minis. The pack mule is a Warlord figure from their ancient Romans line. They use Pilum in fantasy settings, right?! I need more halflings in my collection.

The elves. The middle figure is a de Terlizzi masterwork mini, sculpted by Tom Meier. The other two are Red Box. I think these have all made an appearance on my site before, but here they are again!

The entire Goblin warband. The guys with spears in the back were painted a looooong time ago. It’s nice to have finally finished up the collection. Sorry for the DOF issues. I was being lazy.

Mr. Rocklobber and Goblin Companions. These are all Red Box Minis. The troll/ogre fellow is a resin casting. Pot of sky blue paint shown for scale.

A Place to Call Home

Apples and ale

Not too much progress on the hobby front over the past couple of weeks, but I did make up this deployment point vignette for Sharp Practice II. It’s carved out of polyiso rigid insulation, which is something of a new material for me to work with. This was a practice piece. I think my texture work needs some…work, and the paint job got away from me a bit. I wanted it to look like a weathered ruin, but it’s kind of a muddy mess.

I thought about adding some stacked muskets to the vignette for extra ambience, but left them out for the moment, leaving the piece is period-neutral.

Rubble filled stone wall.

The only figure I’ve painted since the last post is the colonel of the 1/52nd that you see in the pictures. It’s a Perry figure. He’s quite dashing, with his pelisse thrown carelessly over his shoulder, and bright orange mutton chops. I’ll call him Opie.

You’ll never fit through that door, Opie.

You’ll never fit through that door, Opie.

Rubble filled stone wall.

Apples and ale

 

‘Goons

Dra-goons, that is. This week’s work involved the painting of a handful of 28mm Dragoons for my Sharp Practice project.

Another view. I have zero expertise in French cavalry uniforms (don’t even own an Osprey on the subject!), but I THINK these are in a pre-1809 uniform.

Down the road…

Officer, and four Dragoons, painted up as the 1st.

Another five dismounted dragoons await the tender ministrations of my paint brush, and then I will have to order the mounted versions. Though it will hurt my wallet, particularly with the aforementioned mounted figures, I think I’m going to stay with metal miniatures for this entire project.

These figures are from Brigade Games’ Napoleonic line.In my opinion, (obviously, since I wrote it), Brigade’s figures are every bit the equal of Perry (which I also love). To forestall any confusion, I’m speaking of Brigade Games in the USA-I don’t think they have any affiliation with the UK company of the same name.

Until next time…

6th Cacadores for Sharp Practice II

6th Cacadores – 8 troopers, an NCO and an officer.

 

Just a quick update. I’ve made a good start on a few Portuguese skirmishers from the 6th Cacadores. I should have twelve troopers for the standard Sharp Practice elements, so I need to purchase and paint four more. This is my way of avoiding painting 95th Rifles!

These figures are from Brigade Games, and I believe they were sculpted by Paul Hicks. They are wonderful sculpts-highly detailed, and pretty easy to paint. They’re easily on par with the Perry miniatures I’ve painted, and they’re produced here in the U.S..

The thumbnails below will take you to a full size image.

 

 

 

Legere and Barrels

All of zem.

I’ve been procrastinating on starting my 15mm 95th Rifles for Lasalle (although I did clean up all 50 casts, and mount them on craft sticks in preparation for priming!) by finishing up my 28mm French legere for Song of Drums and Shakos/Sharp Practice II. I also painted a couple of resin barrels, as you might
have gathered from the subtle title of this post.

A basic force in SD&S is a dozen figures, and, conveniently, it seems like skirmishers/light troops in Sharp II are assembled in groups of six.

Soon I will have to start purchasing mass quantities of 28mm figures for my Sharp Practice line infantry. I may go the plastics route, Then again, I REALLY hate assembling plastic figures, and this is a sort of slow going luxury project for me, so maybe I’ll go ahead and bite the (expensive) lead bullet.

This will do as a force for Song of Drums and Shakos. Perry French light infantry painted up as the “Incomparable” 9th.

All of zem.

More fun than a barrel of light infantry!

 

 

More French!

Recent production: three chasseurs, a drummer, and sappeur

My long-suffering Song of Drums and Shakos/Sharp Practice project has also seen a little progress this month. In fact, I now have enough figures to put on a French vs. Brunswicker game of Song of Drums and Shakos. I’m intrigued by the streamlined V2 of Sharp Practice that comes out next month-maybe I’ll ramp up 28mm production, and try to get something ready for that by this Fall.

The specialists. Sappers are intimidating fellows! There’s something incongruously brutal about that axe and apron in the middle of all the normal uniform finery.

Random Pictures and Random Ramble

A quick and dirty update from here at Arkiegamerland.

Where you lead, I’ll follow.

My French light infantry now have an officer to lead them, and a couple of new mess mates. Following on from advice I’ve received on the blog, these guys’ uniforms are a darker shade of blue than I’ve painted in the past. I like it! Still not as dark as the uniforms I see in reenactment photos, but I think these tones will look good on a wargaming table.

Another six figures, and this project should be good to go! Of course, then I’ll have to build up from Song of Drums and Shako small scale skirmish to Sharp Practice company sized skirmish. That should take no more than two to five years!

Silence shrouds the forest, as the birds announce the dawn. Three Four travelers ford the river and southward journey on.

Bonus if you get the reference in the caption. These are a few fantasy figures I’ve painted over the last couple of months. All are Red Box Miniatures. I really like the 6′-6″, lard-assed friar. He’s pretty much ready to kick butt for The Lord. I was going to string the bow on the ranger figure, but it turns out not to be possible because of the way the figure is sculpted. Whoops. Still, Red Box puts out my favorite range of contemporary miniatures, even if the heads are a little small and the bows don’t work!

These guys plus my legere means that I managed to paint all of 7 figures over the last two months. Pathetic!

Take a Ride on Heavy Metal…(note, I’m not a big Don Felder fan, but I couldn’t resist)

I’ve been reading about the Perry plastic War of the Roses figures over on Lead Adventure Forum, and finally gave in and ordered a box of the Mounted Men at Arms 1450-1500. It’s a fantastic kit of parts. No flash. Assembly takes some time, but isn’t a particularly onerous task, and the mix of heads, bodies, arms, weapons, and styles of armor included in the box means that great variety can be achieved. You get 12 mounted figures for $32, which is a pretty darned good deal!

I’m going to be building a pair of forces for Lion Rampant, but instead of doing the War of the Roses (which I know very little about), I think I’ll be doing a couple of houses from Game of Thrones (which I know quite a bit about). There are some fantastic examples of GoT projects over at Lead Adventure Forum, and such a project just looks too fun to resist.

I’ll be using the cavalry heavy French list from Lion Rampant to build the Lannister force. I’ll use the English list from Lion Rampant for House Stark, as foot knights and archers seem more appropriate for the northerners. I’m looking forward to attempting to custom make banners for the two houses. There’s a fantastic tutorial on the subject by Wargames Soldiers and Strategy over on YouTube that utilizes Japanese calligraphy rice paper.

—–

I’m either going to plow through my last six French light infantry next week, or start painting this bright shiny new Game of Thrones project. Given my lack of discipline, I’m sure it will be the latter.

Messieurs avec Le Science

Apologies for the bad French.

Some small progress on miniatures this week. I’ve painted these two fellows up as scenario bait for my Napoleonic skirmish gaming project. They are sculpted by Paul Hicks, and are from the Brigade Games “Napoleon in Egypt” series. In that series, they are supposed to be a sampling of the savants that Napoleon took with him to that ancient country, but I think they’ll serve as spies, or other political operatives, in my games.

Of course, buying and painting these figures has put the notion in my mind that it would be REALLY awesome to do skirmish gaming around Napoleon in Egypt. The scenery would be fantastic, and the scenarios would write themselves!

Accompanied by Voltigeurs, our friends deliver a satchel of important papers to the Governor!

Full Frontal Frenchness

Baby got back.

In other news, I’m working on a very special project related to miniatures wargaming, but, at this stage, it’s nearly as big a secret as the papers these two gentlemen are carrying!