Operation Black errr... Wednesday?

You may recall that the interweb seemingly thwarted my attempt to pick up a copy of Battlegroup Kursk during Plastic Soldier Company's Black Friday sale. I eventually managed to make contact with Will at PSC through Facebook and he graciously honoured the discount which means a pile of rulebooks and supplements will soon be winging its way to Blease Towers. The only concern is that SWMBO sees the big parcel arrive and assumes it's a Xmas present for her! :-)

Meanwhile in Umbongodwongoland...

Any hope of grabbing some time to paint anything today has evaporated in a lunch hour lost to Survey Monkey and over fifty pie charts! However I have grabbed five minutes to let you know Craig Andrews' has published my short Panzerfäuste scenario in his Advent Calendar which provides rules for the Black Hat Halflings I painted up earlier in the year as colonial troops. The scenario and rules can be found here.

Avanti!

Having had one of "those days" including a business trip to London for a meeting which could have been replaced by a six line email, then Dad's taxi duties to was nice to get home just over an hour ago to find the postman had delivered an early Christmas present just in time for some bedtime reading...

A Desperate Venture...

I have been pondering what to use the Warlord WW2 sprues I picked up in their sale recently and have decided to use the US and German troops for an Operation Torch and beyond project. I have always had a fascination with the Tunisian Campaign and reading the Last War Against The French piqued my interest in the invasion of Algeria and French Morocco.

So this morning has largely comprised of surfing the internet and buying a small library of books from Amazon. I already have some on Tunisia but have decided to fill in the blanks regarding Operation Torch itself.

I'm not planning to get down to this until sometime next year and I would like to source some 28mm French troops but I am looking forward to snipping the bits of plastic off the sprues and slapping some paint on.

A Little Transparency...

Whilst concentrating on matters Victorian my mind does wander and I have been thinking about the growing (unpainted) Judge Dredd collection.

As you will have seen from earlier posts I have based the few miniatures I have painted on industrial bases, having a plan to base some of the miniatures on Cursed Earth bases for games outside the Big Meg. Whilst this would necessitate painting two lots of Judges with different bases I wasn't too fussed as the Kickstarter is providing a lot of Judge miniatures.

However, watching the video for the Battle Systems™ Sci-fi Modular Terrain I was impressed with the clear acrylic bases on the miniatures they used so decided to order some from Fenris along with some more of their excellent cobblestone bases. Unfortunately in my enthusiasm I ordered some 20mm ones not 25mm ones but I quickly stuck Judge Dekker on a clear base and photographed her on a few different terrains.

The photos aren't brilliant and the miniature should be pinned rather than attached with just glue but it shows the potential advantage for multi-environment miniatures like the Judge Dredd ones...

(Victorian Month) The Landlady

Along with Jack, Design 28 Miniatures V6 Jack The Ripper pack contains a man with sandwich bard (no doubt to carry the headlines of the latest murder) and a woman in dress, apron and pistol. I'm not 100% sure what she is supposed to be but I have decided she looks formidable enough to be the landlady of some Whitechapel gin parlour and painted her up appropriately.

Victorian England is not renown for having an exciting palette of coloured clothing and it is even more limiting when it comes to working class characters. Consequently the landlady is painted in a black dress with white apron (slightly grubbied up), I gave her blonde hair for a splash of colour.

On a related note the postie delivered a copy of Donald Thomas' The Victorian Underworld, an interesting looking book about criminal activities in Victorian London and the police response. Should be full of great gang and scenario ideas.

(Victorian Month) The Ripper

Well it wouldn't be a proper Victorian Month without a model of Jack the Ripper would it?

The sourge of Whitechapel here is a Design 28 Miniatures figure from their V6 Jack The Ripper pack. The good news is that the range is available from Black Pyramid here. I will certainly be ordering some more figures soon...

Painting was very straightforward, I decided on a largely sinister black look, highlighting a dark grey drybrush with some buff to provide some contrast. It is worth using buff or sand to lighten grey as it produces a more natural result and is not as stark as if you added white.

I decided to paint the doctor's case brown leather for a bit of contrast.

I am really pleased with the end result, even if painting was quick and easy.

(Victorian Month) Clockwork Robot

Continuing Victorian Month I have now painted up this Clockwork Robot I picked up last year. At 50mm tall, it is certainly quite imposing amongst regular 28mm high miniatures.

The model is one of Reaper's Chronoscope range (50063 Jeeves, Clockwork Robot) and is a wonderfully detailed model which with a bit of care can be bent into a number of poses.

Painting was straightforward, black undercoat, drybrush with some old GW Tin Bitz, then a lighter drybrush with Vallejo Oily Steel. Eyes dotted in with some red. Simple but effective.

(Victorian Month) Gentleman on Steam Powered Penny Farthing

View Halloo!! Victorian Month starts in tip top fashion with this wonderful Gentleman on Steam Powered Penny Farthing.

Great fun to paint, the model is from the Design 28 Lord Fecitt and Hunting Party set and the base from Fenris Games. I understand that Black Pyramid Gaming have taken over Design 28 but can't find any reference to them on their website. I have dropped them an enquiry by email to see if the range is still available.

Work continues apace on more Victorian miniatures...

Fon Female Warriors II (aka Amazons)

Despite the distraction of basing up and undercoating some miniatures yesterday for Victorian Month I did finish half the remaining female Fon warriors from Africa Month.

As previous the miniatures are from Dixon and i used my rough drybrush, wash and highlight technique on them. They won't win any competition prize but they good enough at normal viewing distances.

Hopefully the final eight won't take too long now...

December is... Victorian Month!

After the success of Africa Month I have decided to stay in the nineteenth century and so declare December (with its hot chesnuts and Dickens' stories) to be Victorian Month!

I've primed a couple of sets of the Empire of the Dead figures and have some other ones earmarked for Victorian shenanigans from RAFM, Design 28 and Ironclad now mounted on cobblestone and paved bases. Looking forward to this!

I also have bought the Kindle editions of In Her Majesty's Name and Heroes, Villains and Fiends for a smidgen over a tenner on Amazon so will be giving them a peruse later this afternoon. They should provide inspiration even if I don't use the rules.

In the meantime I will get back to finishing off the final sixteen Fon Amazons for the Dahomey project.

(Africa Month) Bad Light Stopped Play

It has been a beautiful day here in sunny Bristol but it wasn't until after lunch that I got the chance to start painting. Unfortunately the sun soon dipped below the horizon thwarting my attempts to finish off the female Fon unit by the close of Africa Month.

Eight are 90% finished, just needing highlights and flock, with the remaining eight at around the 75% mark. A couple of hours of light and they would have been done, still Africa Month has been a success by recent standards with one unit of French and one of Fon completed, and a second within touching distance. Hopefully SWMBO doesn't have plans for me tomorrow morning...

Operation Black Friday Thwarted!

As an Englishman I must confess to inwardly cringing at the attempt by certain retailers to bring Black Friday to these shores, especially as no one is offering a public holiday and a turkey dinner the day before. However I would be a numpty to not take advantage of any offers from retailers who decide to sell me something I had been planning to buy at a cheaper price.

Enter Plastic Soldier Company producers of fine plastic kits and the Battlegroup Kursk rulebook. Following Tas' excellent review/AAR I decided to pick up a copy sometime soon, after all a man cannot have too many sets of WW2 rules.

Having had a hectic, and following a trip to the tyre dept expensive, day, I decided a bit of retail therapy was in order and the nice people at PSC were embracing the spirit of Black Friday by offering 25% of their products today.

Unfortunately their website decided not to play ball and allow me to place my order. For some reason it decided there were "no shipping options to your address". I know the Royal Mail has been privatised but surely folk in West Sussex can send stuff to Bristol! I gave PSC a ring but clearly they realised it was POETS day as no one was answering just after 4pm and I didn't get a response to my hastily sent  email.

So I'm not sure if I have missed out on the 25% saving due to the machinations of the PSC shopping cart, I'll be a bit disappointed if I have but I suppose I can wait until Black Friday 2014!

SF Modular Terrain

Battles inside structures is a staple of science fiction, whether it is Marines versus Aliens or Judges raiding blocks. To date the only real options for gamers to play these types of action is to use 2D floor plans with the odd 3D door, invest in expensive resin items or scratch build. There is now a new option with Battle Systems pre-cut modular cardstock terrain which is currently entering the last three days of its Kicktarter. I have to confess to being tempted, it looks ideal for Judge Dredd and I've always had a hankering for trying some spaceship boarding skirmishes. The video below shows what they are producing...

(Africa Month) Fon Female Warriors I (aka Amazons)

I finished the first four Dahomey Amazons today. The miniatures are from Dixon and as previously discussed some have had head swaps to increase the variety (though I can't rightly remember if this group includes any conversions).

Pretty good figures sculpted by Mike Owen before he went to Foundry, I used the same painting technique of block, wash and highlight as the male warriors for the clothing and weapons, with the flesh just being a heavy drybrush over black undercoat.

Scruntpunk!

The good news is that Bob Olley's Steampunk Scrunt Kickstarter has now exceeded its funding target. The GREAT news is that the Kickstarter includes Scrunt Steampunk vehicles!

The photos from the KS page are works-in-progress (the Dwarves need arms and in one case legs) but surely they are this year's must have wargames accessory?!

Empire of the Dead Compendium

A weighty (in megabytes) tome popped into my inbox today in the form of the long awaited Requiem Compendium for Empire of the Dead, including all the new rules and background for the lovely Kickstarter miniatures.

At 115 pages it has a lot of stuff crammed into it and I have had to stop myself sneaking peeks at Hell Division, the Clickers and other great ideas when I was supposed to be working.

With some many great looking period dramas on TV at the moment including Dracula, Ripper Street and even The Paradise (not that I was watching the latter per se but glancing up I was taken with the buildings and costumes) providing inspiration, it may be that I devote a month soon to starting the ball rolling on with the EOTD figures...

I have managed to slap a bit more paint on the Dixon Amazons today and if nothing unexpected happens at Blease Towers then I am hopeful the Fon Female warrior unit will be finished by the end of Africa Month!

No Show...

Realising last night that I hadn't been to one wargames show this year I decided to go to Reveille today to get my fix. However having dropped son and heir to archery and picked up SWMBO from the supermarket I decided not to, after all I would only end up spending money on things I didn't need and didn't fit in with any ongoing project...

So this afternoon I put the first bits of paint on the Amazons and had a Google surf at options for building terrain for Victorian games using the EOTD Kickstarter figures. I have been caught between the want to buy the lovely but expensive 4 Ground or Sarissa Gaslamp Alley MDF buildings and the less lovely but darn sight cheaper printable building option. At the latter end of things I did discover a really looking nice printable option to stick on foamcore from Grekwood Miniatures which is a great price and looks pretty good...

I also came across some interesting looking pre-painted 7mm (railway) scale card buildings from Purple Bob's Hobbies, which may be a tad large at 1/43rd, but may work with a little bit of work on doors. This Edwardian Toilet block could be useful and Purple Bob also does some useful looking sign sets to add period ambience!

(Africa Month) Dahomey Amazon Head Swaps

Well it was back to Cardiff this morning for the Uni Open Day, shame Saul was not overly impressed with the course after all that driving but at least we found out now... Good news however was that the Dixon Amazons arrived yesterday so I cleared a space on the workbench this afternoon to play with them! Unfortunately there are only nine different miniatures and some of those are obviously variants on the same dolly so I decided that in true Amazon style I would decapitate some of the models - and then do some head swaps to provide some variety in the unit.

Nine figures were converted and the swaps have worked pretty good. I also chopped the arm off one Amazon waving a decapitated head and repositioned the arm without the head...

(Africa Month) Riffi Warrior Test Piece

I decided to try out the same technique that had proven successful (and quick) painting the Fon on one of the Rif tribesman I bought off Richard Baber. I'm not sure who the sculptor is or why the range was not put into production, whilst not Copplestone or Artizan standard, it is decent enough and better than many of the Old Glory historicals.

I didn't do a lot of research on painting the figure, I used Richard's blog as my source knowing he'd done the donkey work. As with the Fon I block painted the figure, washed it with the Flames of War Brown Shade wash and then carefully drybrushed some areas with the original base colour. It is a really easy technique and produces decent enough results. My only reservation is with the tribesman's coat being a tad dark and I may use a lighter base colour next time to provide more contrast...

Wargamers To Arms! Sign This Petition!!

It's not often that wargamers get a bit hot under the collar and organise a petition but with the Royal Mail have introduced some rather ludicrous restrictions on the posting of water-based paint that are not only going to be a pain in the butt for gamers who have little option but to order paint online (even living in a city like Bristol I don't have a decent source for the paint I use) but also adversely impact the livelihoods of small online traders who supply wargamers.

Please read about what the Royal Mail have done, sign the petition and encourage others to do so...

Wargamer's Guide to the Rif War

It's been a pretty crappy couple of days at work so I cheered myself up with some retail therapy on the Too Fat Lardies website and bought Richard Baber's Wargamer's Guide to the Rif War. £7.00 well spent methinks...

Victorian Ghoul

As part of my slowly fermenting Voyages Diabolique project, I have painted up a "test" Ghoul. I've had half a dozen of these lovely Mantic plastics sat on the workbench for some months now, fixed to Fenris bases and undercoated.

After some pondering I tried painting the skin purple then drybrushing with the old GW undead flesh colour. The end result seems to work reasonably well...

(Africa Month) Fon Male Warriors VI

I managed to finish off the final four Fon male warriors before starting work this morning... Once again they are Foundry miniatures, mainly tribesmen with muskets so not particularly exciting but quick to paint and the whole unit does look pretty good en masse. Just waiting for the Dixon Amazons now so I can crack on with unit two...