Land Ironclads: Sprue Fortress III

You may remember a couple of years ago I started work on a small Sprue Fortress to go with my Sprue Village and Sprue Town for Land Ironclads and Aeronef games. Unfortunately I managed to lose the model (don't ask) but recently found it so decided to slap some paint on it before it went AWOL again...

Here it is with an aeronef and some Land Ironclads contraptions for scale...

Panzerfäuste: Forest Trolls

Although I didn't got to Salute this year, I had managed to get my hands on a set of the Hysterical Games Skøgtroll (Forest Trolls) for Panzerfäuste and have just finished painting them.

Sculpted by Alex Huntley of Warploque Miniatures fame, they are based on the Norwegian army of 1940 and I think they look pretty cool. 

I've found Alex's trolls to be probably the best on the market today, having a cool Scandinavian vibe, which suits the Norwegian theme perfectly.

They're impressively large models, standing on 40mm round bases...

I've got another three which I am thinking about converting into the Kings Guard...

Brexit Threat to French and German Toy Soldiers

I must confess to being quite socked at this morning's claim that a vote for the UK to leave the EU in June will have major ramifications on the UK gaming industry. Following on from ridiculous EU legislation that can punish you for taking a photo of a historic monument, it is being claimed that if the Brexit were to occur then EU states would refuse to give UK model and war-game companies copyright permission to manufacture model vehicles and toy soldiers based on their nation.

This would mean that UK companies like Warlord Games, Airfix  and Perry Miniatures would no longer be able to produce WW2 German infantry, Me109 fighters or French Napoleonic infantry.

Further it may be illegal for gamers  to use any existing figures they have in their collection in public (so at a club night or show) without obtaining a license (similar to a visa) from the respective nation's embassy.

Shocking though this is, at least it will see an increase in interest in British history and periods such as the English Civil War should receive a major boost.

Panzerfäuste: Deathless Zombi Troll

In Panzerfäuste, the Deathless are an unusual faction in that they are not allied to either one side or the other, but have their own agenda. Originating out of a war between the Dark Elves and Mountain Trolls, the Deathless have plunged the Dark Elf kingdom into civil war and that conflict has spread south to impact the Great Dwarven War.

The Brute for the Deathless is a Zombi Troll, a resurrected victim of the Dark Elf/Troll Winter War. In the game the Brutes have handlers and this model will as well, in the form of two demonic Likho, which I haven't had the chance to paint yet.

During the Kickstarter the sculptor came with the gruesome idea of having the model posed ripping a Dwarf in half. Normally I don't like models that tie themselves to specific opponents but the designer was so keen it do do it, that it became a Kickstarter exclusive variant figure...

Panzerfäuste: Orc Fomori Brute

One of the more interesting new items for Panzerfäuste is the introduction of some larger beasts (generically referred to as Brutes) who help reinforce the fantasy aspect of the game, as well as provide some heavy close combat capability (especially useful for the Gnomes).

For the Orcs, their Brutes, are a large beastial race of one eyed beings from the marshlands of the Orc homeland, called Fomori (the Orcs have a slight Celtic vibe in the game's background).

I managed to get my hands on one of the pre-release models being cast up at Hysterical Games for the Kickstarter backers and subsequent retail release and have painted him up here. I went for a red-brown skin to provide contrast to the "green" Orcs, and added some rust and steel to the tank cannon "club" and the Schürzen "shield".

The Brutes handlers, modelled in WW2 tank overalls with WW1 touches like the chainmail masks and helmet, were painted in British army Khaki.

I have a nice full box of pre-release goodies read I snuck out of Hysterical last week that I'll be painting up over the next few weeks... :-)

Panzerfäuste: Mushroom Forest

Having had a long hard think about why I was in a hobby funk I decided to blame it on my replacement brushes which were not as good as the old ones I used to get from Waylands Forge and the basing sand I was using, which was too fine compared to what I used for the previous few years.

This might sound silly but having now sourced some decent sable brushes very similar to what I previously used and a bag of recycled glass paving sand from B&Q (thanks to Ian for the suggestion) I now have some mojo back - so there!

First to see the benefits of the return of the mojo are a converted Panzerfäuste Dwarf and some rebased mushrooms I've had knocking around for over a decade having bought them off Oriental Art Studio (?) at a show in the Midlands. They were starting to look a bit fragile so I coated them in PVA to seal them and based them on two old CD's using the paving sand to tie the bases in with all my other stuff. Terrain like this is great for fantasy games...

The Dwarf is an old Wessex figure who had his tunic extended with some spare Green Stuff to make a greatcoat. This was a simple enough conversion and I might do a few more soon...

Merry Christmas!

Hoping you, your family and friends have a peaceful festive period and that Santa brought you lots of shiny new wargaming presents and not too many socks!

Unfortunately I haven't had any spare time to paint my traditional Christmas miniature so I thought I'd re-post all the ones since 2009...

The Legend of Fyrebeard's Gold

Life has been a bit hectic of later with little time for anything gaming orientated (other than far too many Kickstarter boxes that need to hidden from SWMBO!). However I did manage to write a Strange Grogge mini-campaign for the 2015 Orcs in the Webbe Advent Calendar which features an interesting use of a Snakes and Ladders board to run the campaign...

Larry Brom RIP

I have just read that Larry Brom, author of The Sword and the Flame, has passed away. I never met Larry but he was kind enough to send me a signed copy of TSATF 20th Anniversary edition after Wargames Illustrated published my article on French colonial operations in Dahomey a few years back.  RIP Larry.

Panzerfäuste: Troglodyte Black Brigade

Most of my time has been taken up with the Panzerfäuste Kickstarter this month (just four days to go, pledge now!) but I have managed to convert and paint half a section of Troglodyte's as Black Brigade troops.

I used a mix of Warlord plastic Germans, some GW Gnoblar heads and a bit of Green Stuff. They are a bit rough and ready but I am quite pleased with the end result.

Emus 1 Australian Army 0

You got to love history, no matter how much you think you know there is always something new for you to discover. Today that was the Great Emu War of 1932!

This amazing episode in Australian military history is wonderfully illustrated here on Veritable Hokum and described on Wikipedia.

Panzerfäuste - Funded and Growing!

Well the last 48 hours have been extremely exciting! The Panzerfäuste Kickstarter was funded in two hours! It's now pushing through the stretch goals and already over 175 miniatures have been funded, as well as two rulebooks, two magick card decks and some nifty dice.

These are the miniatures that have been funded so far, looking forward to seeing how far it goes... :-)

Panzerfäuste Kickstarter is Go!

Panzerfäuste Kickstarter Starts Tomorrow...

Got to say I am one very excited bunny at the moment...

Some lucky people got to see these in Essen today...

What is Panzerfäuste?

Tia Serag aka Dready has produced this wonderful little video overview of Panzerfäuste if you want to know more about it...

Underground Terrain III

I have managed to repaint another aquarium decoration for my underground terrain project.

I picked this one up on eBay for just £3.53 (which included shipping from China).

Panzerfäuste: Tanks...

One of the things that I was looking forward to spring on the world was what we've decided to do for "tanks" in Panzerfäuste - well it is a fantasy game! :-)

Gnome Char d'Escargot

Orc 'Matilda I' War-Wyrm

More on the "logic" behind the war-beasts can be found here.

Underground Terrain II

I picked up some aquarium rocky outcrops off eBay to use as rock terrain items for my underground table. I was a little concerned about getting a reasonable colour match with the vinyl tiles, but the god of wargamers smiled on me...

Using the Army Painter Grey undercoat I dry brushed this test piece with Vallejo's Medium Grey then Sky Grey and got what I think is a very good match.

Now to crack on with the other rocks...

Panzerfäuste: Orc Infantry Section

Thought you might like to see this video of the forthcoming Orc Infantry section for Panzerfäuste...

Underground Terrain I

As I said at the beginning of the month, I have for some time fancied creating an underground tabletop, not a role-playing tunnels and small cavern job, but a relatively large cavern battlefield. Whilst I wanted to do this, I also want to do it relatively cheaply, but also quite quickly (so no mod-roc creations like my Mars terrain).

For the tabletop I had considered a grey cloth but an (unwilling) trip to a carpet shop saw me perusing their vinyl kitchen and bathroom flooring, especially the marble effect ones. Most of this is cut to size but in a grouted tile effect which wasn't quite what I wanted. However fifteen minutes in eBay and I discovered these packs of one foot square marble effect self adhesive bathroom/kitchen floor tiles, three for £1.99...

I had intended to just lay them on a tabletop but found that they would stick to the underside of my TSS one foot tiles easily enough, so I dug out four and have made a 2 foot square underground tabletop!*

The tiles are very shiny, but a couple of sprays with matt varnish sorts this... Ok, now to find some items to stick on the tabletop.

* I bought enough tiles (three packs) to create a 3 foot square table, I just need to dig out some more terrain tiles from the loft!

Westerplatte 1939

Jakub Rozalski is a great Polish artist who painted some amazing "Steampunk" Russo-Polish War 1920 works a while back. To commemorate the anniversary of the Nazi invasion he has displayed some wonderful new works on his Artstation page...

Panzerfäuste: Troglodyte Black Brigade Test Conversion

One of the races in Panzerfäuste that Wessex Games never got around to having sculpted were the Troglodytes (who are largely Polish influenced uniform wise). Today, I decided to try and convert a Trog of the "Black Brigade" wearing the 10th Motorised's black leather coats and "German" helmets.

I used the body of a Warlord early war plastic German with a GW Gnoblar head. I cut the leg down by a few mm at the knee so the figure was no taller than a Wessex Dwarf, before covering it in layers of Green Stuff to build up the distinctive leather coat, extend the feet and add some facial hair...

I know I won't win any prizes for sculpting but I think it looks ok and a decent paint job should hide 101 sins. It was fairly straight forward conversion job, another nine and I'll have a useable section! :-)

Unleash iHell!

So my great plan to kick myself up the backside today came to nought as I have spent most of today ill with some kind of stomach bug. However some toys arrived in the best which I will talk about tomorrow...

So feeling under the weather I downloaded Slitherine's iPad fantasy warfare game Hell, which is based on the excellent Battle Academy engine so should be good. Unfortunately my first battles have been pretty resounding defeats to the forces of evil so I need to up my game (and probably reduce the complexity level!)

Despite two major defeats I must say it looks great and hopefully when I get my head around what tactics to use, should provide hours of entertainment.