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.

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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.

A Quick Update

I haven’t been super productive in these first couple weeks of the new year, but I have gotten a few things done.

 

Featured in the pictures below are my efforts at painting a unit of the 52nd Oxfordshire British light infantry for the Peninsular War. We’re using Neil Thomas’s Napoleonic rules, which only require 16 figures per unit (I’ll eventually be painting the entire Light Division under Craufurd, plus supporting artillery and cavalry), but I thought I’d paint up some single based  skirmishing figures for use with Sharp Practice and/or Song of Drums and Shakos along the way. I’ll pick a couple of other battalions to pull figures for skirmish gaming along the way.

I have some French Legere to paint up for opposition, but it will be a while before I get started on those.

Also featured are some extremely cheap Chinese wire trees I purchased from the humorously named EBay seller, We Honest. It’s taken some slight effort to get these trees looking halfway decent-the foilage comes in a far-too-bright-for-reality dayglo green. I’ve also mounted these trees on needles for use with my terrain mats, which are draped over easily-pinnable blue foam. An obvious fault of these trees is the complete lack of a root system, but I think they’ll be fine for gaming.

We have another game of Regimental Fire and Fury scheduled for the 18th, and I’m dedicating next week to terrain production for said game. Hopefully I’ll be productive!

 

Bad color in this one.

This photo’s color is fairly accurate. Please tell me the terrain looks vaguely Spanish! Even if you have to lie.

Oh, by the way-see that air tank and hose in the background? I’ve gone and bought myself an airbrush. I’m still getting to grips with operating the thing, but I’m pretty excited about it!

 

A Long Delayed Update

It turns out that the 10th and final semester of Architecture school is also the most intense and demanding of my time. So…very little time spent on miniatures, other than grabbing 30 minutes here or there. I’m also completely off-track on my schedule that I set up at the beginning of the year. That’s no surprise to me, but disappointing, nonetheless.

Napoleonic Digression

I have painted a few 1/72 plastic Napoleonic 95th rifles as well as some French Voltigeurs in the same scale and of the same material. My 95th Rifles have been shown before, and the Italeri sculpts remain a joy to paint. My Voltigeurs are by Zvezda, and have proved to be very unsatisfying to paint. The models look great in bare plastic, but the detail turns out to be quite shallow. I’m not the greatest painter in the world at the best of times, but these Voltigeurs have resisted even my most tender ministrations, and are sloppy and flat in appearance.

They’re certainly not worth breaking out the tripod and backdrop, and thus only get the crappy iPhone photo treatment.

The Dragoon that has snuck in is by Italeri, and was quite fun to paint, though he turned out a good deal more dull than I had hoped.

Back on Track

I have, at long last, started a terrain board for an initial game of I Ain’t Been Shot Mum III. A company of British infantry, supported by a platoon of Shermans will be facing off with a company of Heer infantry in a country village, who happen to have a bit of support in the form of a Pak 40. That’s a bit beside the point, though. Here’s the board.

The board is 2’x4′ in total dimension, and is made up of part of a sheet of 3/8″ masonite (hardboard), 1×2’s, and 3/4″ blue rigid insulation. The 1×2’s shore up the masonite, which is dimensionally stable over time. The blue foam rigid insulation fits perfectly into the ‘reservoir’ created by the 1×2’s, the actual dimensions of which are 3/4″x1.5″. Do you have nominal vs. actual dimensions in Europe? If not, the previous sentence likely makes absolutely no sense. Here’s a shot of the ‘sandwich’ detail.

The cool thing about the blue foam is that it’s extremely easy to sculpt and can quickly be formed into sunken roads, ponds, streams, and hills. It’s my intention to COMPLETE (yes, complete) my terrain board by the end of the week, seeing as how this is that most venerable of American collegiate traditions: Spring Break.

So, more later in the week.

Recommended Listening

I’m on a podcast binge, of late. Here are a couple of history-related shows that I can recommend for listening while jogging, cooking, driving, painting, and other zen-like zone out activities. Don’t zone out too much in the car, though!

• The Napoleon Bonaparte Podcast is an interesting (and detailed) listen. The show is hosted by an Australian named Cameron Reilley, and the resident expert is J. David Markham, who has written a couple of books on the emperor. I suspect that they have a considerable pro-Napoleon bias, but I think that’s fine.
• I’ve recently started listening to the British History Podcast, which is quite good. The podcast starts with the pre-history of Britain (like 30,000BC) and intends to run all the way up until modern times. Jamie Jeffers is the man behind the mike, and he has a compelling speaking voice. Some of the humor is a bit forced and dorky, but overall the production is quite slick.